


The Futurist

by crimson_noir



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Cameos!, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, M/M, MCU compliant, MIT Tony Stark, Tony Stark's Bots, Tony Stark-centric, a lot of Marvel characters just turning up outta nowhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:48:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 69,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21931726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimson_noir/pseuds/crimson_noir
Summary: Tony Stark has always known that he will be the one to kill himself. Here is his life through it all.(Ignorance is bliss.)
Relationships: Happy Hogan & Tony Stark, Harley Keener & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40





	The Futurist

**Author's Note:**

> This took a shit ton of time and a lot of my feelings, but here we are! Because I'm in a place that has blocked spotify, here's a playlist, as a LOT of songs are mentioned in this. 
> 
> Golden – Fall Out Boy  
> Chicago – Sufjan Stevens  
> Rebel, Rebel – David Bowie  
> Hells’ Bells – AC/DC  
> Creep – Radiohead  
> Paparazzi – Lady Gaga  
> Vienna – Billy Joel  
> Swan Lake – Tchaikovsky  
> Far Too Young To Die - Panic! At The Disco  
> Spaceman – The Killers  
> The Element Song  
> Killer Queen – Queen  
> Born In The USA – Bruce Springsteen  
> I’m Gonna Live Until I Die – Frank Sinatra  
> Radio Ga Ga – Queen  
> Blowin’ In The Wind – Bob Dylan  
> Viva La Vida – Coldplay  
> When You Were Young – The Killers  
> La Vie En Rose – Edith Piaf  
> Hazy Shade Of Winter –The Bangles Cover/The Gerard Way ft. Ray Toro Cover  
> I Want It That Way – The Backstreet Boys  
> The Scientist – Coldplay  
> Disenchanted – My Chemical Romance  
> Never Really Over – Katy Perry  
> All These Things That I’ve Done – The Killers  
> The Real Hero – Alan Silvestri 
> 
> Thanks for reading and I hope you like it. 
> 
> (Please leave comments.)

When Anthony Edward Stark, son of Howard and Maria Stark of Stark Industries empire, was born, there had been celebration. Maria was dressed all in gold, her lipstick blood red, roses on her cheeks, dark blonde hair an artfully rendered tumble of curls. Howard had on a traditional black three-piece suit with sapphire cufflinks and red and white accents. His brown eyes had sparkled with delight as he took in the grand ballroom, milling with guests all eager for the tiniest glimpse of the next generation of greatness. Obadiah Stane stood too, with his business partner, and sipped at the very expensive scotch, and talked to Maria about the profits. He was balding, even then.

“Anthony,” Howard Stark had boomed, suddenly, loudly, and a hush fell. “My son, who will burn down mountains. Anthony, Maria’s son—”

Then he’d looked at his wife, and there are photographs of that look, of the utter devotion and love on his face, and Maria’s wry smile that spoke loving volumes. There are photographs, and there are theories. So much love on Howard Stark’s face, there for all the world to see…It is known, by the air and the stars, that that was the last time Maria and Howard Stark loved each other. It is theorized, that that one look sapped Howard Stark of all emotion, forever.

“Maria’s son,” he said, voice fervent, “who will build her a world of peace.”

As we all know, both of these things happened. Howard Stark was a futurist. A weak one, but a futurist nonetheless, and that was one of the few things he ever saw right.

*******

Tony’s earliest memory was of around when he was 3 and was working (never playing) with his tools. They were actual tools, not children’s engineering play sets—built with blunted edges and plastic handles. Tony had a very healthy disdain of plastic, even then, and it continued till he died. Possibly after, too.

He was working with a blade, cutting gleaming strips of copper for decoration. Just along the edges, perhaps—the wiring was beautiful enough as it was—the way it was all so clearly meant to be like that, like Cinderella’s foot and the glass slipper. His au pair insisted on reading him stories. She was the eighth one this year, and she always tucked him in his bed, and kissed his forehead, and unnecessary things like that. The last one was better—she let him sleep in the lab and didn’t nag him to eat or go to play with the other children while Father talked business with their mothers. This one, though. She was terrible.

“Tony,” she’d said today, “if you don’t stop playing with knives, I’ll have to tell your father.”

He remembered screaming at her that his father would want him to build, would want him to hold sharp objects well. She didn’t return for quite a long time. Tony was happy. She could tell his father everything. When his father saw what he was making, it would all be forgotten. His father would be _proud_ of him. He was happy alone, as it was. He worked and it was dark outside, suddenly, and he was fine.

He looked at the clock. After an hour, he could go meet Jarvis. Jarvis would feed him pie, sit him on top of the table, and tickle his nose. Jarvis would tell him to sit and read his books. Only Jarvis. Tony liked Jarvis a lot. Jarvis was very kind and funny. He was also very tall, taller than his father. He decided to be fancy and cut a copper strip into a butterfly, so that Mother would have something pretty to look at that she’d understand. Tony didn’t think she understood anything these days, but he was going to talk to her till she did. He would save them all.

“Tony,” snarled a voice, an angry voice, and his knife slipped, bright beads of blood falling on the copper. Howard Stark, half-drunk and half-dressed, stinking of liquor, began to shout. Tony wailed. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He wanted to disappear. He knew, in that instant, that he would make himself disappear, and it would be because of this anger that wasn’t his.

*******

When Tony Stark is 10, he knows all that’s happening in the house. He is back from his boarding school for New Year, and the chandeliers are shining. He is top of his form and the youngest one there. He has nothing to be afraid of. He knows that Maria Stark awakes only for charity galas and the like, and Howard Stark is an insane drunk (the ghost of Captain America driving him crazy every ~~failed~~ expedition).

He has nothing to fear. Jarvis would be there. There is no one big or intelligent enough to take his things. It is all fine. Tony takes a small blade out from his pocket, the ball of his thumb stroking along the edge slowly, not forcefully enough to draw blood. Tony likes his blood; likes the way it looks. He puts the blade back in and drinks water. He’s not going to survive past twenty, he knows this. He’s going to be the one who kills himself, though.

No one else must have that particular satisfaction.

Universes can change and fall apart to dust and metaphor, but Tony Stark knows this: He will be the one to kill himself. He doesn’t know much else—whether he’ll be mourned or not, what will be in his epitaph, will there be someone to carry on the legacy for Stark Industries (there’ll be one, legitimate, illegitimate, he’s sure of it), will anyone even care. Tony doesn’t know a lot of things about death, that’s one riddle he hasn’t solved, but he does know he’ll die at his own hands. As he walks up to the mansion, he can’t decide if that’s creepy or reassuring.

Reassuring, he decides a few decades later.

*******

Tony Stark is 14, and he feels invincible, knows he isn’t, and carries on anyway. He’s at MIT, the best place for engineering sciences in the world (a load of shit, that, Tony thinks the best place is his mind), and he’s the most intelligent among the teeming mass of humanity that chokes its’ corridors. Even higher than the Empire State and hungover, he is light-years ahead. That’s what all this (“rebellion,” says his Dad’s newest secretary over the phone, he bets she’ll get a lollipop from Howard for saying _that_ pretty line later) is, really. He’s searching for a high that’ll be numbing enough to make him dumb like all of the rest.

Maybe he’ll have enough friends if he screws up enough.

This is just like any other party, loud music and the moans are louder, stinking of liquor and the musk-acid smell of sex. Tony’s simultaneously so drunk and high that he isn’t mingling. These parties aren’t for that, Mom, he thinks hysterically as he remembers Maria Stark, all red lipstick, custom Chanel and fundraisers, a woman slowly rusting to ghost. She would be so unimpressed by this, if she even were in there at all anymore. All she does is nod and say ‘Tony’ in a blank tone, and he doesn’t have it in his heart to remind her that she’d hated that nickname, had called him ‘Tonio’ and sang Italian lullabies to him as they sat on the swing. He can’t.

He stumbles out, off the dance floor, and no one cares that he’s just fourteen, because he looks old for his age and he has muscles (lean ones, but there nonetheless) and he’s richer than the rest of their households and this particular building combined. As soon as he stumbles onto a couch, for those very reasons, there’s a girl on him, all blonde hair, and he doesn’t care what damned colour her eyes are, because he’s now worried.

If he’s noticed the colour of her hair, the high’s surely receding, and that cannot happen. He drinks a lot of vodka, and takes pills, and orders her to strip and lie down on the bloody floor, because his focus is razor-sharp and one of those pills made him super horny. She does so, and his eyes latch on to her breasts that seem larger than his head.

“I’m gonna do coke off of you,” he says, voice guttural, and if he’s slurring, he doesn’t care, “so stop breathing or you’re going to ruin it and I’m going to hack into some feeds and splash some very embarrassing content all over some very, very sex-starved inboxes. They won’t do a thing to me.”

“Nothing about me is embarrassing,” she giggles, thinking it’s some kind of messed-up foreplay, but he’s always been so ruined that the only thing that made him happy was making people like him. He arranges lines on her truly magnificent body and breathes them in, vision hazy till all he sees is a blur of lights and he can’t see her bloody hair because she lies down on the floor, still laughing, but he cannot hear what she’s laughing about because his bare feet are on her nipples, which are oh-so hard and he feels a dress on the couch, digging into his clothed ass. It’s probably Blondie’s but he can’t see her, (drugs, they’re miracles) so he throws it in some vague direction over his head (out of sight, out of mind) as he feels fingers on his crotch, warmth seeping in through the denim.

He’s going to die—from the lights, from the drugs, from the drinks, from this feeling of loneliness—he thinks as he arches up into someone’s mouth, his own mouth filled with vodka that’s too strong to be legal, and too smooth to be someone else’s. He’s going to burn himself out, he knows, and he just wants it all to be over, to see the last few lights (because he knows he’ll be too intoxicated to have proper sight). He knows his future—he’s a radioactive metal stored in an unsafe place with no security measures, and he’s going to go all Chernobyl on their asses soon.

*******

When Tony’s at another party, having had his 15th birthday and second stomach-pump experience, still at MIT, he’s not high. He’s aiming for drunk, though, and in a very expensive suit. There’s a whiskey glass in his hand, and his tie is loose because his 3rd partner of the night had really wanted his clothes off, but Tony had wanted to be in a bed. He should probably label this as Progress, but that brunette guy’s still waiting in that wardrobe, and Tony is really wound up. He should really stop trying to achieve self-actualization through a whiskey bottle and go get his ever-loving brains sucked out of his body by a very talented tongue. Then he’ll be relaxed, and dumb, and then he’ll find a friend. God, he’s pathetic, isn’t he?

Dad would be so pissed.

Tony doesn’t remember when ‘Father’ became ‘Dad,’ but it isn’t because mutual relations warmed. ‘Dad’ is a swear word in Tony Stark’s billionaire mouth, all of its’ possible meanings warped and twisted into monsters in the way he says it. It’s a blasphemy, it’s a curse, it’s a dead body rotting in a dumpster. Hearing the word ‘Dad’ from Tony has, on many occasions, been the one to scare his hook-ups into leaving. The sheer amount of venom packed into that single word has never failed to scare.

The whiskey burns. He can hear Rebel, Rebel in the background and wonders who came up with the good music choice, finally.

Tony looks across the room, as he is wont to do on these occasions, and sees a very handsome man (not boy, not guy, not this one) sitting in the corner, scratching away in a notebook. If he’s doing that at a party, either he’s very dumb (good for his libido) or very intelligent (better for his libido). The thought of pulling that careful focus apart touch-by-touch has Tony smirking, and he glides his way to the man, and purrs, “Well, I haven’t seen you around here before.” The man looks up, totally unimpressed (he’s so lovely) and drawls, “Thank God.”

Tony is undeterred. “I’ll make you scream that in bed, chocolate sauce.” The man snorts, loud and ungraceful, and Tony frowns. “Excuse me,” says Pretty Boy, amused to hell and back (Tony’s offended; that tone of voice has had people _crawling_ ), “You’re barely 15 if you’re anything at all, and you’re very drunk and very rich, but you look like a pale skinny white boy with the beginnings of facial hair despite whatever Vanity Fair reports, and you expect me to believe that you’re interesting enough for my night.”

Tony knows that he should be insulted, but he was looking at Sassy Pretty Boy’s notebook, and that. That’s hotter than the man and any other shit Tony’s seen since he came to this godforsaken place. He doesn’t want this man to sleep with him and be gone, he wants him to stick around and talk to him about machines. The realization is staggering. Is this what it feels like, to be in love? Screw it. Screw common sense and all that shit.

“I want to be your friend, that’s it,” he blurts out, and the shock on Pretty Boy’s face is a real thing, “no screaming in bed. Just—I saw your notes while you were tearing me a new one and they’re really something to look at, okay? A winged jetpack—that just might work.”

He sighs. “I get it, you have problems with me and all this—,” he thinks of the guy in the wardrobe, waiting, “drunk, rich orgy thing, but you have a brain and I’m lonely, and I’m desperate, and you’re, like, smart. All this can be shut down if you want it, man. Just bring your pens and your notebooks, and that head of yours and I’ll stop.”

In hindsight, Tony’s glad that he wasn’t drunk, or high or having sex, because then he wouldn’t have the sheer pleasure of seeing the second of pity that flickered on Pretty Boy’s face. Who was he kidding? ~~The first person he’d been honest with in ages, and _this_ is happening~~

“James Rhodes,” says Pretty Boy, throwing Tony off his game so violently that he wasn’t sure it was actually happening, but he was the kind of guy who rolled with the damn punches, so he says, “Tony Stark.”

Tony Stark is sure then that it would end up in flames, and he’s going to play some cheap trick on everyone and irreparably hurt James Rhodes and then their friendship would end and that is what would kill him when he dies.

Now, though, it is to be noted here that James Rhodes gets off the insufferable chair at last, puts his notebook down, and says to his friend (!), Tony Stark, “Well, I guess we gotta clean this hell up together now.”

*******

Tony Stark is a genius, and he’s so effing drunk, man, so seventeen-year-old stupid drunk he’s arrogant enough to feel like he’s drunker than he’s ever been. He put together a mass of coding together when he was drunk earlier that day, and built some sort of misshapen metal grabber arm, and when nothing happened, he proceeded to chug the ever-loving shit out of his liquor cabinet.

He doesn’t even know what he’s currently guzzling like a bitch in heat at a crowded bar. Mead, says the bottle label, expensively. It doesn’t actually speak, though (which is how Tony knows he isn’t on drugs, and regrets getting clean on Rhodey’s insistence), but Tony can’t taste whatever it tastes like and carefully refrains from crying his eyes out.

“Can’t even make a rudimentary helper bot,” he mutters angrily to himself, “can’t even taste mead. Can’t even save _one_ important old man…”

And then he bursts into noisy tears and throws the bottle of mead against the nearest wall. There are glass shards near him, around him, everywhere, and Tony knows he shouldn’t, Jarvis had hated it, had stopped it, had taken the knives away (later, it’ll be Happy, but Happy is not here yet, and Rhodey doesn’t know of this particular bad habit).

But Jarvis isn’t here now, is he?

As he picks up a sharp shard and draws it along skin till skin starts to tear, he looks at the grease stains that are practically everywhere. He notices that there is actual definition to his arms, chest and legs—that he is damn ripped from nearly forever of constant building ( _innovating_ , Obie said, a smile on his face and the profits in his files) for Stark Industries, years of constant building to keep himself alive.

He sees that the desk that he’d been working on a very long time ago (when was the last time he’d napped, shit, Rhodey would freak and wrap him up in bubble wrap) had too many coffee cups littering it. A half-made missile lies in a stand in a corner, sad and neglected. The workshop is a mess. God, he misses Rhodey, but the air force people are sharks and they know potential when they saw it, and they delight in snatching it away from Tony.

Blood drips on the concrete, and Tony Stark knows what will kill him—this grief will. This desperation of not being able to bring back the gone. This, this hole in him will kill him. This question will kill him—did Jarvis ever truly love him, or was it all because he was paid?

*******

1991 is coming to an end. It’s December. In around four days, it will be time for Rhodey to come to the mansion, where Tony currently is, so that they can spend three days together before he leaves for Peak Christmas Craziness with his own family. In ten days, it’ll be Christmas, nine or ten days, Tony doesn’t really know the date, he’s been working steadily for the past few weeks, because Obie has been on his ass.

He’s slept less, sure, but at least he’s slept. Maria had come in a few hours ago (Maria, not Mom), all dressed up in silk and pearls, ready for some ball or the other. She’d come down to his workshop, where he sat at a table drinking some odd old disaster of mould, grease and coffee (so not the son she _didn’t_ raise), and she’d just looked at him, a weird, soft smile on her face. It didn’t seem fake, that smile, or blank, but before he could say a thing, she was gone, and he was staring at air, unable to figure out whether it had been real.

He’s working, elbow-deep in the guts of a missile he thinks he’ll call the Janus, or something like that, something literary, biblical, something like twisted up heaven, ~~so appropriate~~ when someone says, “Mr. Stark?”

He hums non-committedly back at whoever it is, a non-verbal irritation for them to carry on when he should’ve already been on his guard. All the house’s various employees call him Anthony, when Howard’s at home. He can hear the hesitation, but he doesn’t get it, is too deep in the guts of a timer to care about the messenger’s expression. He shoves a wrench in his mouth and ignores DUM-E’s wheels on the concrete.

He speaks around the wrench, “Darling, you’re knocking off the concentration, here. Tell me what has to be done, would you?” He looks up when she hasn’t spoken for a while, irritation twisting and coiling in the pit of his stomach, and looks at her ashen face and brown curls, and tenses. “What’s wrong? Tell me what went so wrong that you had to come down here to the place where the crazy rats live.”

 _You’re ruining your shoes_ , he wants to say, _you’re stepping in grease and they’re patent._

Even as he tries to reassure her, he knows that whatever happened is big. Maybe Howard got really drunk at that party and was caught cheating. Maybe the flicker he’d seen of a lucid, alive, Maria Stark asserted itself and she walked out on him. Maybe his ex-drug dealer, angry because he’d stopped getting cash from Tony Stark, spilled to the press. Maybe some parade of angry exes said he screwed children. Whatever it was, it could be handled.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark,” she says, and it’s a whisper, but she still catches it, and he’s just flat-out annoyed now, “Howard and Maria Stark were found dead in the early hours of the morning. Car crash. Your father—”

“Yes, I know,” he cuts her off. His ears are ringing. “I know what you mean to say, something about how he was a great man and how the world suffers because of this loss, get out of here with your prepared condolences, Tiffany. Just—”

His wrench has fallen on the floor, and she’s still there in the doorway, the insufferable brat, can’t she see, can’t she _leave._

“No,” she grits out through clenched teeth, “Your father was drunk.”

Of course, he was.

But how could he be?

How?

How could he be driving, they had a driver, they must have, didn’t they know Howard Stark had sunk to the bottom of the metaphorical bottle? It couldn’t be, how could he have been drunk once he saw Maria Stark, _Maria_ , as she used to be when they first met? It’s so easy to believe the truth, though. Obviously, it was Howard. Who else would’ve done such a thing, who else would’ve been so blatantly unobservant? The messenger has left.

Tony tries, he really does.

He works and he works and he works for so long, but he can’t stop seeing the half-smile his mother had flashed at him, as if she were proud of him, and before he knows it, he’s taken out a bottle of bourbon from somewhere and has drunk a good portion of it very quickly and very successfully. God, he wants drugs.

You did this to me, you made me what I am, he wants to scream at his (dead) parents, and he probably will if he’s not kept on a very tight leash at the funeral, you fucking ruined my life, if you cared about me you would’ve done this a long time ago, not now, when I have people around me and now you’ve escaped. Poof, gone. Why leave me here to scream—Is that what good parents do, leave kids to rot in their own mistakes? But they never were good parents, so he’s just being dumb now.

He’s lying on the floor, looking up at nothing at nothing in particular, and something inside him feels like it might shake apart. This is what will kill him—this want. He wants his mother back, the smiles and the forgotten lullabies and the spark in her eyes that he hasn’t seen well, ever. These memories, his own damned memories, were going to kill him.

*******

Tony Stark is 26, and the code just. Isn’t. Listening.

He’s made so many helper bots, learning bots, _actual AI’s_ , leaps and bounds ahead of whatever glorified speech-to-text machine Hammer will ever preach, he’s ahead of the bloody future and this code isn’t listening to him.

“Shut up shut up shut up,” he chants at nothing in particular, just the thoughts in his own head are too fast, too loud, and he needs, he needs, he needs.

He just wants someone to sort it all out for him, he’s too young for this, he should be out partying and scandalizing the tabloids like all the other rich youngsters. But the fact of the matter is that most of those youngsters still have their Daddy footing their bills and running their companies while the only Daddy Tony’s ever known has been someone with a hot bod in his California King bed in his lonely penthouse, and there have been too many to depend upon.

He wants Jarvis.

He looks at his code. Screw how it doesn’t work. He’s gonna have to want it to work for it to work, so he goes to voice controls and asks to fabricate whatever it can from the little video files that have Edwin Jarvis, deceased nine years, in them. As the voice begins to build, he fixes the holes in the code, making it virtually impenetrable, leaving little dialog boxes which take the hacker’s location and offer them a job to Stark Industries if they open them. And they have to, to get to the next place. He virtually sews the AI back together, and as it starts taking proper form, he sees that it’s more advanced than practically anything he’s made before. Typical of—what’s he gonna call it?

A dialog box pops up onscreen. “Do you wish to hear the reconstructed AI?”

He taps the Yes, and the AI says, “This is your default setting for AI version .029508a.”

Tony’s stunned, and there is a sting behind his eyes, somewhere deep in his mind, and he’s taken back to swinging his legs while sitting on granite countertops and Jarvis saying that two tins of cookies are enough cookies for such a small boy, and Jarvis looking disappointed when he finds the swear words scrawled at the back of his textbook, and Jarvis. It sounds just like Jarvis. “AI version .029508a,” he answers, eyes closed, like he’s creating history, “I hereby designate you JARVIS. Personal pronouns, please.”

“What does the acronym stand for, Sir?”

Aw, baby AI’s asking questions. Tony barely restrains a squeal. Tony doesn’t have to think about the answer. When he was young, whenever he was taken to business parties and people asked who he was (just a formality, all of them already knew), Jarvis would answer, “Just a really very intelligent Stark,” and laugh.

“I had a—,” he trips on his words, “father, long ago. And seeing as you are one of the few code children I plan to have, I think I’ll fall to tradition. JARVIS, short for Just A Really Very Intelligent System.” JARVIS takes that in, because he’s an AI who’s studied human patterns and has been coded to pass the Turing Test.

“Indeed, Sir,” he answers at last, and Tony lets out a breath he doesn’t even know he’s been holding and wants to cry. Maybe he is crying. Yes, these are tears. This air, whooshing out of his lungs into a room with Jarvis’s voice—this very air will kill him, he knows. _Give me some time_ , he begs silently, perhaps for the first (and probably last) time in his life, his face turned up to the ceiling, to his only god, code, _give me some time before you burn me_.

*******

Tony Stark is too damn famous for all this. It’s his 32nd goddamn birthday and there are there are too many people in this house, his house. He’s supposed to enjoy this, he knows, Obie said so, eyes sparkling, the corners crinkling up. But he doesn’t want it—doesn’t want the almost naked men gyrating on his bar, doesn’t want the transparent-swimsuit clad women in the pool, on the slides—why are there slides, he’s not a child, he never was. He doesn’t want the heirs and heiresses of the society who cluster around him, desperate for emotions he can’t give them and the money he can.

It’s torturous—his workshop’s right there, just a few steps and a biometric scan—and he can’t go there, because he is a damned man, damned to drown in this excess. He knows that so many would do literally anything—are currently doing so many things—to be somewhere near his position. But it’s his birthday, he should be allowed to be selfish and uncaring. This is what Howard would’ve wanted, he thinks bitterly, drinking Scotch decades older than him carelessly, not savouring it as he should.

Oh god, DUM-E must be so lonely downstairs. A genuinely fond smile curves his face and before he can replace it with something less real, there’s a girl plastered to him like she thinks that’ll lead to a church wedding in July. “What are you thinking about, darling?” Her voice is low and husky and filled with promise, and maybe he should give in and use the bed for every single thing he can think of except for actual sleep.

Looking at her, though—it’s a different kind of fun—the way she tugs him onto the dance floor, the fact that she’s short enough to allow him to see all the way down the skimpy, pricy scrap of fabric that is her dress into some really delightful cleavage as she looks up at him with hearts and stars in her eyes. He thinks this is when he should feel like a douche, but he really does not. She wants him, she’s made it pretty damn clear. Tall girls are better, though. Tony prefers to look up at beautiful things.

“Sweetheart,” she breathes out, into his ears, his mouth, _his mind,_ “honey, I’m going to show you the time of your life.”

Tony stops dancing—or whatever he was doing—and sighs a small sigh. “I’m sure you will someday,” he replies, and he makes sure to slur a bit, even though he’s so far from drunk it’s ridiculous. Her eyes widen a bit as he steps away, and he’s making sure not to hurt her too much, making sure he sloshes his whisky, making sure all she sees is a rich man with no respect. He’s still hurting her, and he wants to punch something really hard.

“You asshole,” she whispers, because she can’t scream at him at his own party, but as long as no one hears, “I told you just what a difficult life I’ve had, you monster, all I wanted was one night!”

If she weren’t whispering, tearing up, so many other things, she would’ve screamed. Also, just when did she tell him her sob story? How long have they been dancing? He can see she wants a retort, would break without one, so he says, “It’s my birthday. I can slurp from as many cream pies as I want tonight.”

He hates that line, she bursts into tears, he’s had enough. Damn it all to hell, why is Rhodey in the Air Force of all places? He turns to leave, some obscene, loud party song he hates in his ears, slams through glass doors, rushes down into his garage.

“JARVIS,” he calls out, and God, he sounds bad. Wrecked.

“Sir,” replies JARVIS, ever vigilant.

“I want a car, JARV,” he orders.

“Sir—,” protests JARVIS, and Tony knows he’s going to make some reasonable point or the other, so he pleads, “JARVIS, I’m 32, and you know I have a tolerance. If there’s a fine, send it to the cops or something. Hell, multiply it by a hundred, say it’s a donation.”

A sleek red and gold car glides out, the top down, black leather upholstery. Tony smiles. “If I die, it’s all Rhodey’s, you know that,” he tells JARVIS, and slides in, hands on the leather bound steering wheel as his ass hits the seat, and he could be a Formula One racer if he weren’t himself, because he adores cars, adores the way they move and do mostly everything other than fly their sparkly selves into the sky.

“I want the nearest place I can box,” he says to the GPS once he’s on the road, the wind in his hair, half the buttons of his shirt open. There’s a run-down warehouse which seems to double as a gym, and it’s close by, and Tony doesn’t really want to feel rich at the moment, even though his cufflinks are pearls and his suit and his car together are probably the GDP of some small country. That’s not even counting the watch.

Oh, he’s going to get so mugged. When he arrives, he puts all the stuff that he can take off in the safe that’s installed in the car’s dashboard, leaving him in his white dress shirt (he rolls up the sleeves, puts a few buttons through their holes), very well-cut trousers, and leather shoes. Definitely not boxing attire, but this will get him beaten the hell up, and he finds that he’s okay with that. God, he’s pathetic. 

He strides in, and damn, it smells like sweat. Punching bags hang from the ceiling, each at respectable distances to each other and a respectable distance from the boxing ring, where two men currently duke it out, surrounded by a small crowd. It’s not comfortable by any shot—it reeks chokingly of testosterone and hell, the sweat, but he’s fine.

He winds bandages around his hands with some small amount of care, thinks about whether to wear gloves, decides he shouldn’t, and goes to town on a bag painted with the varied glorious hues of America, a bald eagle right in its’ middle. He supposes it’s cute. He remembers how he’d learnt to box as he does so, slowly at first, but his pace improves as he really gets into it, more elaborate and brutal with time. The first time he’d boxed was at school, when it had been a mandatory thing. He bunked half his classes to build, anyway.

The second time had been when Rhodey got very, very tired of him offending or stealing other peoples’ significant others’ and had asked Tony if he ever meant to hire a bodyguard, or did he just have to stick around and tell the ROTC to stick it? Tony had said no, absolutely not, and then Rhodey had socked him, not breaking anything on purpose, but then the resulting wound was a bitch to heal.

The very next week, Rhodey with the help of his other friends (a tall blonde named Carol, a very cool chick called Maria, and a cat who seemed to love Tony) had held auditions for a condensed Stark Security team and also taught Tony the basics of boxing. He ripped around two pairs of trousers and a pair of leather pants before Danvers stopped laughing and bought him proper attire. He wasn’t good at combat, like, at all (Carol and Maria were, it was like they knew each other’s bodies, it was like a dance they did every day when they fought), but he kept a punching bag, because those sessions had been fun and Maria Rambeau calls him sometimes, just for kicks.

Tony never asks her where Danvers disappeared to.

He unwraps his bandages after a good twenty-five minutes, feeling out of sorts and unsteady, but cleared of all the influence that the alcohol had managed to exercise over him. He feels like he can hear his heart beating. It is nice.

“Hey, Richie!”

He keeps his eyes on the white linen strips, hoping against hope it’s someone else’s name.

“Hey, pretty rich kid.”

Tony sighs. He turns to see a veritable damn Colossus of a man, all red with all that rage and exuding a smell of sweat that is the most revolting thing he’s smelt in a very long time.

“You come in here hoping no one’s gon’ see you dance ‘round that bag like a fuckin’ ponce, you rich little snotbag, you come here for—what was it, what was it, inner reflection, huh? Just go to one of those countries you can buy with your peanuts, why don’t you? This is a place for the working,” he spits, and Tony doesn’t hear any of it, not really. He raises an eyebrow, watches the guy splutter, and turns around so they aren’t facing each other anymore.

“You know,” he drawls, because he’s Tony Stark and he never could leave well enough _alone_ , “that chip on your shoulder, it really needs looking at.”

And with that, he tosses a wad of money behind him as he walks out, in front of the weak gust from one of the fans, positioned so that he’d be like one of those superheroes striding away from an explosion. Only instead of fire, it was dollar bills. He can imagine he hears a roar of anger, too (and possibly it isn’t imagined). Oh, he’s really going to get beaten up. In preparation, he walks into a nearby alley, lights a cigarette, leans against a wall, exuding arrogance. He gives those thugs ten seconds, or he’ll leave and step in the path of some bloody car, because it’s his birthday, and he wants some pain, goddamn it, is that too messed-up to ask for?

He turns to the right on purpose, hearing the scruff of shoe against the stone. It isn’t even a couple of seconds before he goes down hard, a punch to the back of his head. Vision blacking out and he counts the white spots—seven. A vicious punch to the ribs, ears ringing. Hell, he hopes this looks like some really rough sex, because otherwise there’s gonna be a scandal. He barely fights back, letting his back hit the wall, cigarette lost in the unholy confusion, sliding down to hit the ground. He can’t open his damn eyes, and _fuck_ , it hurts worse than the time that one guy intentionally used teeth in the blowjob for the racy factor. It hurts like fire down his spine, fire and blood and other unsavoury tastes filling his head, on his tongue. They won’t beat him to death; he wishes that they would.

And suddenly, oh-so-damn suddenly, they’re gone, the hands, the kicking feet. The pain grows, the air on his skin brutal. Are they bored of him, so soon? But he’s _pretty_. Was he rescued? He opens his eyes, and it sends his head throbbing, his vision washed in purples and reds, but he can see a vague, hulking shape guarding him. From force of habit, he gasps, “Rh—” even though he cannot speak, and it is clearly not Rhodey.

“Hey, man,” says his saviour, “don’t try to say anything. Stay with me, though, I’m calling for help. Hell, that was shit of them to do, your birthday and all…”

Tony thinks he might die of this, of the agony in his right cheekbone, of the look the man gives him when he tries to talk, stern and disapproving, of the grime under his hands and nails, of the utter hilarity of it all—Tony Stark, beaten up in a destroyed place full of debris, saved by a man with thinning hair and feet that are set far apart. So, he chokes out a singsong, “Happy—” and then he faints before he can sing ‘Birthday to me.’

*******

“I have a head of security,” says Tony to the Board one day, when it’s way too early for a meeting, weak sunlight coming in through the ceiling-to-floor glass windows, painting the conference room a pale gold, “why are we talking about this? The guy drives me around, shoots when he’s gotta—perfect dude all around. Yeah, he doesn’t smile much, and who really does nowadays, but it’s been three years of trying. Give me two more and he’ll be grinning like a Ken doll on crack.”

Obadiah Stane coughs. “Tony, Tony, my boy, you’ve got to see. I’ve got twenty candidates for this job just waiting—”

“No, no, not even if they’re named James Rhodes,” Tony hisses.

Obadiah Stane sighs. So does everyone else; it’s all a very dramatic display and it gets on Tony’s nerves. He walks straight out of that meeting. He knows they like him and want what’s best for him, but he can’t do it. Him and Happy are…attached.

He reaches his office and flops on the leather chair and spins till everything’s a blur. Goddamn being clean. He can still drink, though, thank the heavens. He stops spinning, braces himself, hands on the glass desk (huge, triangular glass desk; it was Howard’s, too) just in time to hear a loud, hysterical, but still furious shriek of, “I have pepper spray!”

God, he hopes it’s not some rabid ex, because even if all their visits are slightly fun and end in glass table sex ~~and a slot in Page Three~~ , they’re still irritating. And dumb, so dumb. The door bangs open and the first thing he registers is tall human with shiny long red hair before she _slams_ some papers down on his big empty glass desk and calmly says, “There are fifty mil going absolutely and completely nowhere in this budgeting you’ve done, Mr. Stark. They’ll probably build to more, like money tends to do, and by more, I mean quite a lot. You going to fix it?”

She’s put a can of something that is decidedly not pepper spray (meaning she fooled his guards? Oh, this could be interesting) and the latest balance sheets down in front of him, and her knuckles are white and she’s _really_ pretty, but he thought this sheet was perfect and if she was the only one to spot an error, a mere fifty million lost among these billions, she’s intelligent and meticulous and all the things he likes but can never be.

She’s probably got a real sexy work ethic, and Tony thinks she’s beautiful. He notices she didn’t say Mr. Stark or something like that, meaning that she doesn’t respect stupidity (neither does he). Or she’s just too angry for formality (he would be too, probably). Whatever she is, he likes it, all of it. If she came storming up to his office for a budgeting error, a nearly unidentifiable one, too, she’s determined. She could’ve given it to her superior or something, but she didn’t. She came up to shriek at him in person, and that gives him a warn tingly feeling near his diaphragm. Tony’s disturbed, and very emotionally starved; he knows it.

“What’s your name?” He asks, cutting off her absolute rant about irresponsible finance handling and millions of Stark dollars going to waste and _that money is for your employees_. She narrows her eyes at him, but answers curiously coolly, “Virginia Potts.”

“Ms. Potts,” he starts, watching her eyes narrow further and he honestly didn’t think that was possible, her professional smile firmly in place and he wants to earn her real one, “calling you Pepper Spray Ma’am would be too long and tedious for everyone involved, okay? So, is just Pepper fine with you? No kidding, of course it must—”

“Virginia Potts,” she smiles politely, “is my name, Mr. Stark. I would suggest you put that genius brain of yours to use and remember it. No nicknames. It’s unprofessional conduct.”

He pouts.

She keeps smiling.

“Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”

He pouts aggressively, and answers, “That will be all, Ms. Potts.”

And if he feels like “Virginia Potts” has been branded into him with a red-hot poker, somewhere vital, somewhere deep and clean, no one has to know. He just gives her a very extravagant raise, fires the current model masquerading as a personal assistant and asks her to be his PA. She agrees after he’s given her six raises and around twelve pairs of very expensive dagger heels. None of the other PA’s are her level of—her, so he’s ecstatic when she finally agrees. He always ends her workday with a “That will be all, Ms. Potts,” and if he knows she has a date with a guy named Chris who works in Stark Law, he doesn’t show it.

He just revolutionises gun tech again, and makes a pair of illegally-high juiced shock bracelets, toying with a vague outline of selling the plans to the Pentagon to help them upgrade their spy gear, but then he just sends them to S.H.I.E.L.D labelled ‘Bites.’ He’s going to die of this, he thinks, listening to Hells’ Bells in the workshop, the guitar so loud it hurts, the urge to make a friend and take it further crossing in his mind like fireworks on clear skies. He’s going to die of her smile, the way she lies perfectly even when she doesn’t want to, when she doesn’t like to, and he’s too invested in her despite not really knowing her at all, and its’ all fine, all so mundanely boringly okay it twinges.

Tony Stark’s forever known that he is going to be the one to kill himself, but now he knows one more thing: she’s going to see him do it. Maybe not the personal way he wants, probably just on a TV screen while she’s drinking her morning coffee (hair mussed up, eyes still a little puffy with sleep, maybe, maybe) and watching the headlines of the day, barely thrown off her rhythm when she reads the headline ‘Stark CEO kills self.’ Actually, to hell with the personal way he wants, the impersonal TV screen technique is exactly how he wants her to see him die.

Because anything closer would hurt her, and she must not be hurt. Ever.

*******

_Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s._

And there are bombs, holes in his Humvee, and goddamn, how are there holes in the metal—

There’s a missile, a missile with his mane on it, and he knew this, knew he would kill himself, a missile from the J series, the first of who had been

Janus, the second

Judas, the third

Jericho. Jericho. Jericho.

The files for Jerusalem were in his mind, are in his mind, stay in his mind forever, even as his own missile explodes, shrapnel clean through the bullet-proof vest Obie had given him, had begged him to wear—

There is a _fucking_ car battery hooked up to his chest, and he’s never known pain before, and Yinsen says, “We call them the walking dead,” and shows him the pieces of metal that were in his chest, and Tony glares at them, wishes they’d done their job and killed him—

“No,” he refuses, stubborn, because they’re not getting a cent worth of missile tech out of him, and he’s grabbed from the back of the neck as he thinks, oh, and then is shoved unceremoniously into a trough of water and he’s struggling not to breathe, what with the electromagnet in his chest, his lung capacity is greatly decreased and _this is_ _not autoerotic asphyxiation_ —

Yinsen’s there, they’re playing backgammon, and it’s a mellower day. Tony’s happy because he hasn’t been waterboarded, and just how pitiful is that, him being overjoyed because he wasn’t almost killed. _Serotonin’s really cheap here, think I’ll stay,_ he wants to say, but he just makes a stupid move on the board and says across to Yinsen (his doctor, his saviour, his friend too, now, torture is a really good team-bonding exercise, he guesses he’ll implement it instead of company retreats and parties for the employees at Stark), “Well, now you have a chance to win,” and Yinsen smiles—

No, he doesn’t have family, he tells Yinsen, and thinks wistfully of Rhodey, Happy, Pepper, JARVIS, and the bots. “So, you’re a man who has everything and nothing,” observes Yinsen, firelight sparking in the lenses of his round glasses, and Tony says _yeah_ somewhere in the back of his mind—

Yinsen’s smile painted red as Tony finds him, dying against stacks of sacks, insisting that _this was always the plan, Stark_ , a gun in his hand, glasses still on his face, whispering, “Don’t waste it. Don’t waste your life.” Yinsen dying and Tony feeling the worst he’s ever felt, the armour heavy, paining his arms, the heat of the flames searing, he’s going to be cooked in what he made but he’s damned if he doesn’t torch these fuckers first—

The flight, the sky, the escape, the pain, the relief as he falls—

At least he escaped them, he’ll be fine letting the desert kill him—

The sound of a helicopter motor, the hope, the hope, Tony will die of it, but Rhodey’s leaping out of a helicopter still in the air and he looks to be in the same clothes as he was when Tony last saw him, and he looks wrecked, and Tony’s fallen to his knees in the sand, throwing up the peace sign (wow, irony) because he’s Tony Stark, and the utter pain on James Rhodes’s face will kill him—

“Next time you ride with me,” Rhodey’s saying, his voice shaking, and Tony lets his tears wet his cheeks, Rhodey’s clothes, at last, he can do nothing but agree, because he was wrong and Rhodey was right, and thank god, thank whatever—

Walking down from the huge airplane, hardly caring it’s what the President sent as a gesture of support, because he can see Pepper standing on the tarmac, Pepper at the end of it all, his light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel, Happy at her side, discreetly wiping his tears before leaving (to get the car of some other equally unimportant shit like that, Tony wishes he’d stay, it’s been too long). He leans on Rhodey completely, because wearing a suit when his arm was in a sling had been hard and tiring and the reactor in his chest hurt. Everything hurt. But Pepper’s eyes are rimmed with red and her makeup is thin enough for him to see her freckles and—

Don’t break character, he thinks, but he softens so quickly for her, and maybe that will be why he dies—

“Tears of joy. I hate job hunting,” she answers, quick as a whip, Pepper, and he can do nothing, absolutely nothing but smile at her, forever—

He slides down, taking support from the lectern, eyes on the cameras, mind on his cheeseburger, and he doesn’t care about what he says because he’s said it a thousand times, in his head, in the cave, in his heart—

_I had my eyes opened. I came to realize that I had more to offer this world than just making things that blow up. And that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries—_

Standing near the large reactor, his reactor covered up, the silence like a death knell, him trying to fill it with useless information, useless questions, Obie uncovering the arc in his chest, buttoning it all the way back up, the relief flooding through him—

Making the more advanced Suit. Failing. Smacking his head against concrete. Flying. Flying—

Ugh, icing—

Driving to the gala at top speeds which aren’t quite the Suit—

_Pepperpepperpepperpepper—_

All of her, that dance, she looks so beautiful and she’d never believe him, ever—

The balcony, he can’t quite believe how lovely she always is, when she talks, when she walks, he’s just looking at her, unable to do anything else, all his mental processes fallen to fairy dust, and he’s leaning in and so is she—

Martini. Dry. Extra Olives.

Everheart coming up to him, slamming the photos down in front of him. Gulmira, Yinsen’s home—

Obie on the stairs, confessing—

Flying all the way to Gulmira, Rhodey’s voice in his ear, “Uh, driving with the top down”—

Come on, government pilots, you can do better, ugh, just go meet Rhodey, all of you, because Rambeau will tear you one so big you won’t be able to move anymore, that’s shoddy handling of a perfectly damn okay aircraft—

Demolishing weapons stocks, a crate with ‘Stark’ written on the side—

Pepper finding him. Pepper knowing. “You’re going to kill yourself, and I’m not going to be a part of it.”—

Pepper pulling the arc out, putting the new one back in—

Proof That Tony Stark Has A Heart—

“You’re all I have too, you know.”—

Pepper’s red hair, curling above her collarbones—

Stane—

Stane pulling the arc out—

“I really wish you hadn’t involved her in this”—

Tony wishes the same, but Tony’s going to rip him apart for daring to wish so, for making it so—

It aches, it aches—

He slides down, useless, oxygen supply to the brain petering out and what a waste of everything, what was it all for—

DUM-E. DUM-E with Pepper’s gift. Pepper saving his life—

He’s going to explode with the anger he’s feeling towards Stane—

“3O YEARS!” Stane shouts, and Tony wants to scream back, ~~you were there for my bloody first birthday, you _asshole_~~ its’ been more than that, learn to subtract—

The bigger reactor. Him hanging off the edge. Pepper, push the button—

“You’ll die!” At least I’ll die with your voice in my ears, he thinks, at least you’ll live, and he remembers what he’d thought the moment he met her: Pepper Potts would watch him die, and he’s never, ever been angrier to be right—

Waking up to her calling his name out loud, almost frenzied—

Another bloody press conference, but he’ll stand this time, even though it aches, bruises covered by the clothes he’s wearing, mottled yellows and blues. Pepper’s putting something on his face and 2008 journalism is calling him Iron Man, a hero, and they have a pretty cover story involving a yacht to be faked for themselves and a pretty death to be faked for Stane—

He’s not a hero, and Rhodey’s at his side and Christine Everheart in the throng, legs crossed, face set like she knows something he doesn’t (maybe she does, maybe she does) and he thinks about Pepper saying, “That night, when we danced, and you went to go get me a drink, and left me there?”, and all the good (fake) memories of Obie, and the soldiers in that Afghanistan desert whose deaths so frequently star in his nightmares and regrets and he owes them something. He owes them—

“The truth is, I am Iron Man.”

Oh, he’s going to die anyways, this is him signing his death certificate, so why not die of excitement, in his skin, sparking deep in his bones, cracking in the twist of his words. Why not die of fun.

*******

Tony’s never quite hardcore liked Radiohead, but he thinks they were onto something when Creep happened. He’s blasting the hell out of a lot of little freaky slime creatures as he faces the Latest Villain of The Day. He hasn’t quite got the name yet, but it’s got to be something stupid. He only wishes it’s stupid enough to make Happy crack a grin.

 _I want a perfect body_ , croons the lead, _I want a perfect soul_.

Tony relates so much that it’s physically painful—or that must just be one of the numerous bruises from the armour asserting itself. There’s a call, and Tony picks up without looking—JARVIS takes the vaguest affirmative nods as consent, which is not a code problem. He’s just bitchy like that during battle. The music continues. Tony keeps humming.

“Mr. Stark,” Pepper says authoritatively, and he sighs in the middle of dispatching a slime ball.

“Are you,” she pauses, and mutters something like _why am I still at this job_ , “Are you fighting?”

The whine of the repulsors is suddenly just loud enough to be heard by Pepper over the line, loud enough to be on purpose, and he’s going to pour mayonnaise all over JARVIS’s servers, god damn it.

“Yes, you are,” she continues, her voice just slightly high-pitched, “of course, you are. Second query, Mr. Stark—are you listening to Creep.”

The second query was probably something else, but the song’s reaching a really good part, and it’s not a question, her tone is flat and unimpressed and he’s both surprised and not surprised that she knows the song, but then JARVIS suddenly turns the volume way, way up and he finds himself singing along to _I wish I was special, you’re so fuckin’ special._

He thinks she blushes, he’s not so sure, really, because slime ball monsters! They do love to get in the way of a good old-fashioned romance. She cuts the call after a long, exasperated sigh and Tony threateningly barks out a, “JARVIS!” JARVIS responds with something that sounds like a chuckle, and damn it all, he couldn’t have been more British if he tried.

“Just following my orders, Sir,” he says smoothly, and Tony replies, “I never ordered you to embarrass me to death, Jesus.”

“It’s JARVIS, Sir, though disembodied voices from the heavens can be somewhat confusing.”

“Smartass,” Tony mutters, but he’s grinning, because God, his AI has _personality_ , all of his technology does.

“Indeed, Sir,” says JARVIS politely.

He grumbles his way up to the Slime-Lord—God, Tony should start giving supervillain name advice—and repulsors (him? her?) it clean on its’ ass. It doesn’t melt to goop immediately, which doesn’t make Tony worry a lot (he’s got nukes too; he knows how to use them). This one’s just tougher—Jell-O?

“How-what the hell, JARV, it’s just building—”

“Yes, Sir,” JARVIS answers, “This is Edward Limtan, aged 44. An ex-scientist at one of the many sub-laboratories at Hammer, he underwent an—unfortunate—change a few days ago. Failed experiment. I’ll be sending a clean-up team to collect the evidence and all the dangerous substances now.”

“Spectacular, do that,” announces Tony, without excitement, and lasers the jelly until advanced clean-up is required, also noting that he’s sticky all over and smelling of cheap citrus. Ugh.

“Sir, Lt. Colonel Rhodes wishes to inform you that he saw the jelly kick your ass and also sent an audio file,” informs JARVIS. Tony hears a 50 second clip of Rhodey laughing his absolute guts out, and feels the better for it.

“J tell him he’s disowned,” he grins.

“I am sure he will be devastated, Sir,” says JARVIS, and Tony really wants to snark back, but he sees a figure dressed in red and black hopping around slicing at the few remaining slime-things.

“Who’s that, J?”

Data splays across the HUD, an astonishingly long list of numbers and names and trashed funerals.

“A mercenary, Sir. Known to call himself Deadpool. Would you like me to get you his actual name?”

He’s not a bad guy, this Deadpool, so Tony can respect whatever he wants to hide, he’s ~~just~~ unhinged, and Tony can relate, just a bit, to the links between mental destruction and secrecy. So he says, “No, J, it’s fine,” and touches down near him, slightly quieter than usual. But he makes the whine of the repulsors just loud and distinctive enough to get a response.

“TO-Oh-NY Stark,” trills Deadpool, a deranged, armed nursery teacher at roll call, slicing a katana through the jelly as bullets don’t work well enough, “How are you doing this fine, fine morning, sir?”

Tony watches another sentient ball of jelly melt. God, he’s going to need therapy after this.

“I’ll be perfectly mentally stable if I never have to look at one of these again,” he says evenly, poking the mess with his boot, watching Deadpool’s face mask ‘eyes’ widen comically.

“Weren’t you supposed to be the perfect fucking hero, taco? The new-age Captain America, built with titanium, gunned with nukes, the representation of the strongest?”

Tony’s just tired enough not to respond; the guy’s hit one of his weak spots pretty unknowingly—Howard had always held Tony up to that exact standard, _that exact standard,_ had wanted his son to be better, faster, stronger than all around him, and that is one question that Tony often thinks about in his empty house, looking out of his crystal windows, an empty glass at his side. Wasn’t he supposed to be perfect? Wasn’t being a hero supposed to make Tony happy, or has he already tripped the Geiger counter into brokenness?

“Also, you should know better than to wish for the impossible,” Deadpool continues.

“They’re all gone, the Jellytubbies,” he snarls, and Deadpool puts both his hands up.

“That’s not up to your usual standard, fettucine,” says Deadpool, “I meant don’t wish for the motherfucking mental stability. That’s like wanting a five-dollar hooker with Nicki Minaj’s tits—not possible unless you get happy cause you’re satisfied easily and have real bad standards, or you’re being cheated. It’s long, yes, but accurate analogy is bloody accurate.”

Deadpool strings the words out, twisting them into a thousand and one meanings before he leaves. God, I want his identity, Tony thinks, and feels hollow. He’s left standing in the middle of the street surrounded by ominously wobbling puddles of jelly, and he wants to puke. He doesn’t think much about the fact that he’s considering taking Deadpool’s advice (don’t wish for the mental stability; it’s good advice).

As he shoots up into the sky, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’ll die of all the thoughts about all the things he didn’t say or do, all the thoughts about how it could’ve all gone better. He feels emotionally, physically and mentally drained, and he thinks that maybe he’ll die because regret will slice off his head.

*******

“Ugh,” says Tony, when he wakes up in hospital to find everyone, literally everyone at his side. He tries to speak, but he can’t.

“Really? Come on, boss,” Happy is leaning against the nearest wall. “I thought we had a burger deal.”

Pepper’s there too, looking so amused, just a hint of exasperated, leaning a touch forward in her chair.

“Hey,” she whispers, head cocked to the sided, eyes shining with mirth, “I kinda really wanted to continue where we left off, you know.”

He winces, grinning sheepishly. He’d collapsed, after all the Vanko and the exploding Stark Expo and the kiss on the rooftop.

_The kiss on the rooftop._

Rhodey’s on another hospital chair, head in his hands, shoulders shaking with laughter. When he looks up, he looks pretty defeated, but like he’s struggling not to laugh.

“I left you two alone for a night of fun and games, not this!”

Tony makes an indignant noise. Pepper plonks a tab on his lap, and he smiles at her gratefully. She beams back, and God, she looks beautiful, even now. She’s so perfect.

 _You’re so perfect_ , he writes on the tablet and Rhodey snorts. “Of course, I am heathen. You’re lucky.”

 _Shut up,_ Tony writes, _Romanova. Where is she?_

Pepper sighs. “Back to business, I see. She’s still my assistant, but she blew her cover pretty well. So, I had JARVIS botch all evidence anyone might have of her. I combed through some footage myself, but then I had to look over the stocks, they’re better than expected, by the way, and then I held a few meetings. Nothing to worry about, Tony. Take a virtual cooking class or something.”

 _That was a perfectly okay omelette,_ Tony writes petulantly.

“Nothing perfect, okay or omelette about that disaster,” remarks Happy and Tony glares at him, “What? Boss Lady here showed me the pictures while we waited.”

 _You’re terrible,_ he writes, and pouts at her. She only laughs.

“I have to leave, boys,” she announces, kissing Tony on the forehead, “Happy is terrible, James is perfect, and I am chopped liver, I guess. Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”

You will always be all I ever need, he thinks, and writes _That will be all, Ms. Potts._

“Ugh,” Rhodey groans, “I thought I had a job in which I would worry about other people or god forbid, myself, more than I’d worry about you. I was hilariously wrong. Oh god, Tony, you utter demon.”

 _Hey,_ Tony writes, and tries to look offended.

“I got myself a 1000-dollar Feng Shui plant,” continues James Rhodes, “I thought I would care about it because of the price if nothing else.”

There’s a pause. There is no noise except for the beeping and Happy’s silent chuckles.

“Tony,” says Rhodey seriously, “that thing is dead.”

Happy loses his shit.

 _Predictable,_ Tony writes.

“I asked Maria goddamn Rambeau to take care of the plant and she said, I kid you not, ‘I have a daughter, a cat and a space dandelion to take care of. Just give it to your billionaire soulmate, Rhodes.’ Which is ironic, because that plant is supposed to make me stop worrying about you. A 1000-dollar plant, Tony, how are you more important to me than that?”

 _I am worth much more than 1000 dollars, I am more expensive, hence you worry more about me, as you should,_ Tony writes, magnanimous, thinking about ‘space dandelion’ and grinning. _What was the plant’s name?_

“Why would I name a plant, Tony?”

“Should’ve named it Robert, nice name,” says Happy knowledgeably, “Shows that you cared about it and all that jazz.”

Tony thinks about all of it—the palladium poisoning, making Pep CEO, the Monaco disaster, the drunk birthday blowout, meeting Fury (again), the suitcase full of Howard, the old film that he doesn’t remember being in, the element, Hammer, Vanko, Rhodey locked in a murder bot, Vanko at the Expo, Pepper.

He’ll be okay. They’ll get through this. He’ll take all the meds, make the armour lighter, have hospital dates with Pepper, hack S.H.I.E.L.D again just for the routine he’s formed (they send him cute and sad little memos telling him not to do it, and that _as a consultant it is his duty to help_ , but Tony really does not care), send DUM-E, You and Butterfingers little videos so that they don’t miss him too much.

“Hey, Honey Bear,” he croaks out, “we’ll be up and running in no time.”

This is what he’ll die of, the utter relief pouring off of them, overwhelming him in waves. He’ll die of people being thankful and tactless and so utterly people, he thinks as he looks at the piles of Get Well Soon cards in baskets on the floor, where he can reach them. He loves it, yes, but he loves it almost like a drug, and everyone knows what they do in the end.

*******

_“You’re not the kind of guy to lay down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”_

Pepper’s gone to oversee a new head-quarters for Asia, Rhodey’s with the (bloody) Air Force and Happy’s at his own house, resting for once. Unfortunately, this state of affairs leaves Tony all alone with his thoughts and the bar.

Thank God for the bar, really.

Otherwise he couldn’t think without that goddamned wormhole replaying on the inside of his eyelids, the nuke exploding on a loop in his brain. He’s so pleasantly numb right now he can think about Fury _and_ the Captain without wanting to burn the Tower to the ground. He should be given a Nobel just for that herculean feat alone. Thank God they weren’t keeping in touch (even Banner, Tony was the tiniest bit hurt by that, honestly, he thought they’d connected).

Tony had cleared floors for all of them, because Pepper had said it was only polite and Tony Stark was always, always prepared, always the one with the solution, always the one to push it through, the one you went to when there was a missile coming for you. Nat Romanoff was gone (ha, Romanoff, Rushman, all a smokescreen, where’s Romanova, he asks), gone with Barton to their flying metal turd in the sky, and honestly? Tony was cool about that.

He didn’t want to be manipulated if he could help it; it was inconvenient, and he was a busy man. He wanted to talk to Barton, though, figure out just how it had felt to be under control, because Loki touched Tony’s arc reactor too, so what if? What if this was Tony under control, right now, at this very moment? What if Tony was here, drinking himself to incoherence because Loki wanted him to? What if Loki lost only because it was all part of some Great Plan?

Tony’s hands shake as he pours another glass. He wants to call someone, fix something, not be so alone…The workshop’s on lockdown because of The Chitauri and all (the Tower’s lower levels weren’t hit at all, but Pepper wants him, needs him to rest; hell, he’s a shit boyfriend, wasn’t a good friend either, will they ever be okay), and there’s no one. The king, he thinks, all alone in his castle of gold. The Tower is slightly smashed up, though, letters falling off and a huge bloody hole in the middle of the floor (Tony has been looking at it sadly for a long time; he really liked his flooring). Who knows, maybe he’ll box it up in glass, make it a museum exhibit, guided tours and the whole shebang, put a plaque on there, new tourist attraction, more revenue.

All funds go to the ‘Fix Stark Tower’ Fund, he thinks sourly. Ooh, maybe they can have a gala! He really wants an excuse to buy more McQueen. Maybe Pepper and he can match. Maybe, just maybe—

Tony can propose.

He takes the ring out of his pocket (it’s usually with Happy, but Tony asked him for it as they saw Pepper take off, and Happy had smiled sadly, “come on, boss”) and looks at it lying in the palm of his hand. It’s simple, the diamond not ostentatiously large, but the colour perfectly clear. Clear and large enough to be really, really, expensive.

God, he’s a fool, but he’d known he loved her so early, and it had seemed so simple, so simple, to buy a diamond (because none of the rings at the stores were good enough) and buy some platinum (it’s a platinum-titanium-gold alloy, the ring, stronger than his Suit), and sit in the workshop for about a week, trying and trying and _trying_. It’s been four years since that, and it’s not even been a year since they started dating, and Tony’s a fool for her, a fool ever since he saw her, and this is stupid of him. The stone glitters in the light. Maybe he can propose.

How long must he wait?

Tony Stark has never been a matrimonial sort of guy, but he’s been lugging around a ring that he himself made for the better part of four years, and he’s starting to suspect that he’s a softie. Ugh, this is going to completely decimate his reputation if the press ever gets to know about it. Christine Everheart’s headline is just going to be a large, bold ‘AWW’, isn’t it?

“Sir, incoming call from Director Fury. You are allowed to take this particular call, as the Director called Ms. Potts before calling you.”

He puts the ring back in his pocket.

A screen materializes in front of him, Fury’s face in stark relief to a pristine white background.

“Stark.”

“Fury, I don’t have time for this, okay? It’s been quite a week. I’m tired.”

It has been a week, from press conferences, a few board meetings he absolutely had to be present for, cleaning up the debris as Iron Man (none, literally none of the other _Avengers_ bothered to show up), inaugurating a fund for New York, handing the WSC and the Congress (ugh, ugh, _ugh_ ), constant interviews. It’s a wonder he’s not in bed, but it’s not a surprise. Happy is going to be so disappointed and Rhodey will kill him with the prodigious use of One (1) Newly Refurbished War Machine. He really doesn’t have time for this, unless his depressing internal monologue is what Fury’s gonna spout, and he doubts that.

“You okay, Stark?”

“It is none of your business, Grandpa Fury,” he sneers. Fury looks world-weary, exhausted and almost as old as he feels. He doesn’t have any sympathy for him, just as he doesn’t have any sympathy for himself.

“Another person used to call me that.”

“I cannot legally express how bored I am right now, because it involves—”

Nukes. He chokes on the word and settles for a cool eyebrow at the Director instead. _I had most need for blessing,_ he thinks, _and Amen stuck in my throat_. Macbeth: eternally relatable.

“Having speech problems?”

“Come to the point, Nicky-nick-nick,” he snarls. Come to the fucking point, what do you want from me. Again.

“You’re being a complete and utter diva,” the Director barks.

“Thank you, twenty people on the street have told me that already.”

“You need therapy.”

“Again, Nicholas, people on the street seem to know all you think, and they’re just so much more pleasant.”

“You don’t listen,” says Fury, annoyed, “to _pleasant_ , Stark. You need to be adjusted, seem adjusted, at least. The Avengers need a home base.”

Of course, they do.

He cuts the call with a swipe through Fury’s face, but not before throwing in a middle finger for good measure. This is what is going to kill him, he thinks, rocking back on the bar stool, fingers involuntarily and tightly wrapped around the ring in his pocket. The things, the threats he foresees are going to kill him.

Well, he’s a self-proclaimed futurist for a reason.

*******

It’s another very strained fight with another very desperate villain resulting in another spectacular instance of the Avengers who really do not want to do this _together_ , and Tony wants to get back to his penthouse, back to the comfort of a call from Rhodey and the newest specs from Stark R&D that Pep wants him to look over. But then Captain America says, “Team Meeting back at the Tower, common floor. Iron Man, you have to be there, you missed—”

He can hear the slight ‘darn it’ in his comms as he takes to the sky in the middle of Rogers’ sentence. The super-soldier can try to be quiet, but Tony designed damn good comms. Thor is off-world; Tony is disgruntled, all this would be easier with Thor around, be it the fighting or the co-existing. Tony is also disgruntled because this means Thor will not have to deal with all of this—all of this awkwardness.

The team is…not okay. They are bad, for the lack of a better word—they fight fine, they take orders and dispatch the threat well before it actually does anything, but back at the Tower…it’s a damn mess. All of it is a goddamn mess. They stay on their own floors despite having a common floor, movie theatre and gym (mini gyms are on every one’s floors which explains why they don’t use the big one) and only meet if they awkwardly bump into each other (no one talks even then) in the main kitchen, which doesn’t happen much, since all of them have such crazy schedules.

Team Meetings are practically the only time they sit at one table, and even them, most of them don’t contribute much, if at all. Barton and Romanoff don’t talk at all. He hasn’t heard one word from the two of them when they aren’t in the field. Even when the Avengers have to go out for public functions, they flash a smile for the cameras at the red carpet and do not look at each other for the rest of the event.

It’s very strained and weird and potentially harmful, and Tony is betting on a blow-up soon, and not wanting one because they’re all super-powered kids and he doesn’t want his Tower to get smashed up by the heroes instead of the villains, thank you very much. What would he tell the press? _Accident at the lab_ , says his brain, and he curses himself for having so much experience at lying.

“Call from Ms. Potts, Sir,” interrupts Jarvis.

“Yes, J.”

“Hey, Tony,” Pepper says. Her voice is low and delightful, the high-altitude flying Tony’s currently doing making the connection crackle just a bit.

“Pep!”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, darling, always. Just a few dings and scratches here and there, nothing to worry about. I’m still pretty, Ms. Potts.”

“You know I’ll still like you when your skin gets all saggy and your hair goes grey, Mr. Stark.”

It is times like these, when she says things like this—he cannot breathe for fear it’s a dream.

“Tony?”

“Nothing. Just contemplating how terrible I shall look, oh, my faded glory.”

“You,” she’s grinning, “are an idiot.”

Thank God she doesn’t know he loves her. She’ll make fun of him forever.

“That hurt most grievously,” he grins back, and makes sure she can hear the smile in his voice.

“I shouldn’t be distracting you when you’re flying, but I actually did have something to say,” she tells him, and he can hear the clink of a glass against wood. Wine? Now?

Well, she does drink when she’s nervous and alone (not alcohol, it can be just coffee or water, but something makes him think it’s wine). Why would she be nervous, though?

“Tony, the Board says I should move to the West Coast for like, six months or so.”

Oh. Goddamn it all, if she doesn’t want to do it, he’s going to go up to every single one of those Wharton asshats and remind them _just who owns them_. It is sensible, though, they’ve been paying too much attention to New York as it is, and even if consumer sales aren’t falling, they might, and LA is important.

“It’s a good idea,” he says, slowly, “do you want to do it?”

“Um,” she murmurs, “yeah, I guess. I know you just went through all of the pros and cons, so you know why I’m saying yes. This, though.”

She stops. He knows what she wants to say, and he knows she’s not saying it because she’ll appear kind of weak (like she actually depends on the relationship, and even though they both do, none of them are mentally at the stage at which to admit it), but he wants to put her at ease because it was the first thing he worried about too. He almost crashed into a building because of that very worry.

“This won’t affect us, Pepper. I hope. If it does, I’m—I’m dismantling the company, I’m torching Stark to the ground—”

“Hey,” she says, softly, and it almost breaks him, because yes, that is how much she means to him, and if she feels the same, it means the world, it means the stars and the sun and everything in between, “baby, I wasn’t even thinking you’d be worried about long-distance. I didn’t know you’d think that I’d break it up over it being long-distance.”

“I,” he starts, and doesn’t continue.

“Tony. You adorable little _idiot_. List of reasons why you cannot move to Malibu: One, you need to stop being so insecure in our relationship. Two, The Avengers—I know it’s not going well, but I guess you gotta try. Three, there is no reason for you to move to Malibu. Four, you have a better lab in the Tower. At least, that’s what I think.”

“But you’re there,” he whines, and he sounds lovesick and deranged and stupid and if she hadn’t guessed he loves her, now she knows, because he _does_ have a (sorta kinda) better lab in New York, and if he’s prepared to give it up for her—it means something.

“And that thing you said? About dismantling the company? Anthony Edward Stark, Stark Industries is my child, you get it? No jokes like that, or I won’t allow you to come meet me at Christmas.”

 _I love you;_ he wants to say. Jesus, she’s so amazing, what has he done to deserve her? 

“Christmas, then. A Malibu winter,” he agrees, “like Barbie.”

“No Avengers, at least not this year, not even if all of you magically become best friends,” Pepper demands.

“I highly doubt that we’ll even wish each other a Merry Christmas.”

“That’s problematic; it’s been quite some time you’ve all been fighting against evil together,” she declares, and he knows it is, but he just says, “Bye, honey.”

“Good-bye, Ken.”

He touches down on the armour bay, and robot arms take the Suit off of him, and the penthouse is empty and his under suit is sweat-sodden and JARVIS says, “Captain Rogers wants all the Avengers to be there at the common floor in around four minutes, Sir.”

“I’m not an Avenger.”

“You will be, Sir.”

The elevator takes him to the common floor, JARV playing Lady Gaga in lieu of elevator music ( _baby, you’ll be famous, chase you down until you love me_ ) to showcase his solidarity, and he’s pressing a cold compress to the back of his neck. Everyone’s there already, except for Banner.

“Well,” says Barton, and Tony’s shocked.

“Yes, we can start,” starts Captain America and Tony scowls.

This team’s going to kill him.

*******

~~(They never quite become a team.)~~

It’s nearing winter, and Tony remembers that according to the Mayan Calendar, the world would end in 2012, and he wishes it would all just shut up and _end_ already (2013 is already half-gone, but he hopes they got it a year wrong or something). It’s the only thing between Tony and a complete and total breakdown, this half-assed prophecy of crazy people from long ago. Oh God, what if the Chitauri were the end of the world the Mayans had foreseen and what if now Tony just has to keep living, on and on and on.

Gross.

“Sir, incoming call from Matt Murdock.”

“Hey, Matt,” he purrs, “what large legal mess have I landed myself in to get the _pleasure_ of your call? I’ll make sure to do that so much more often.”

“Tony,” replies Matt Murdock, “I have a boyfriend.”

“And I have a Pepper, but c’est la vie, dear boy. We shall tell them that we were not able to escape the flames—nay, the inferno—of our burning passion.”

There’s a choked-off sound, but Matt recovers quick; it’s one of the best things about him, makes him a strong-ass lawyer and one of Pepper’s favourite people to go have ‘bitching about huge companies, stupid clients and boyfriends’ drinks with. “Okay, Ms. Brontë, here’s your problem that has swiftly become mine and all of Stark Law’s problem: Stop telling Senator Stern that he’s a stupid asshole. Stop doing it. I swear to fuck, Tony, we haven’t had this many passive-aggressive mails from the Republicans since you were caught having sex in the Senate. Remember, way back in 2004, when you had that Vegas politician boytoy?”

Tony sighs wistfully. “Ah, Chad. Chad was fun. I was drunk all through that year, remember?”

“Yes, I know, I was the one dealing with all of it,” answers Matt, not wistfully at all. It hurts Tony, just how not wistful Matt is being. Maybe he should cause some more damn trouble, make Matt wish for the good old days…

“No,” says Matt, “whatever you’re thinking, no, Tony. You are not causing a PR disaster just to piss me off again, Tony. You are not kicking kittens in the armour just to get my attention. It’s like having a toddler, seriously.”

“Isn’t that law school, parenting but with set rules,” Tony retorts idly, and his best lawyer growls at him.

“To continue with the Stop Making Senator Stern Feel Like He Has A Small Dick lecture, we need some event to sort this all out, okay? No matter what Obama is now, if he leaves next term it’s the Republicans, I can feel it. Just saying that we need to smooth some ruffled feathers over here. Even if Stern isn’t that important, he still needs to think he is,” reasons Matt, and Tony can hear him flipping pages of some file or the other, “So, you need to bring out the big guns.”

“Fine, we’ll do it at some super nice hotel, edible gold and all that, the whole shebang, I’ll even stop my Twitter feud, happy?”

“The _big guns,_ Tony. Has being knocked around in that armour made you so bloody dumb? What am I saying?”

“No, oh no,” screeches Tony, suddenly getting why Matt’s being so damn careful, not going straight to orders, “Not an Avengers thing.”

“Ding, Tony Stark’s a genius,” says Matt sarcastically, “Yeah, an Avengers thing, fruitcake.”

Matt only uses proper, elaborate nicknames when he’s won something. Tony knows he’s going to be met with a smooth rebuttal, but protests anyway, “What if I say no?”

“Well, I have audio of you saying that we can have it at some super nice hotel for your super friends, so I’m not really worried,” grins Matt, “Also, Ms. Potts is CEO, and she agrees with me. Aggressively.”

“Ugh, I hate your little drinking club,” he tells Matt.

“Says the alcoholic,” scoffs Matt, “all right, the occasion is the one-year anniversary of that fund you set up for the Chitauri survivors under the Maria Stark Foundation.”

“Wow, you are prepared.”

“I have a whole conference room booked for the month so I can use all the virtual whiteboards God has ever made to make notes,” agrees Matt.

“I will make you new ones,” Tony says finally, defeated.

“It’s going to be glorious, Tony, just you wait, we can probably have other superheroes there too, you know, like as a way to show that another fund won’t be needed, make it really poetic, stuff like that.”

“Matt,” whispers Tony, drained, “the Avengers, we don’t have personality.”

“God, I’ll send you guys a coach, learn to fake it together, I’ll tell S.H.I.E.L.D that it’s a team-bonding exercise and that no one will deflower our lord and saviour Captain America,” sighs Matt Murdock, “good bye, hell demon, I want a raise.”

“Send me the details,” says Tony, and Matt cuts the call with a distracted nod.

That just might work.

“The Heroes’ Ball?” Rhodey’s voice is flat and unamused.

“Hey,” says Tony, putting his hands up, “Matt tested it on some focus groups, come on.”

“No, really, isn’t that just a bit presumptuous when you guys aren’t even trying?”

It’s true, it’s a noticed fact that the Avengers never seem to leave or enter a place together, even if that place is a bank being robbed. They did attempt to do it for the cameras when they started, but now no one seems to care. Tony tried once, leaving some virtual newspaper cut-outs hanging over the breakfast table (one of the headlines was the very original _Trouble In Paradise?_ ), things about how The Avengers couldn’t really be trusted of there was no _team unity,_ things that made Tony want to start a drinking competition with the Hulk, but it didn’t make a difference.

“Rhodes, man, I can’t do shit about this, you know it,” Tony replies.

“I know, it’s just so badly branded it’s shocking. Could’ve at least tried to be a bit subtler. What about The Avengers, what do they think?”

“I—I haven’t asked them what they think about it,” Tony admits, “Just cared about if they RSVP’d and they did.”

“How will you guys turn from sulky toddlers to a lean, mean socializing machine in a month, Tones?” Rhodey asks, and Tony wishes he weren’t quite so good at questions.

“Matt said he’ll get us a coach or someone, jeez,” grimaces Tony.

“And instructors worked so well on you,” Rhodey says disapprovingly, “no, that isn’t happening.”

“I know this is a disaster,” groans Tony.

“Your teammates should too. Whatever you say, you guys are billed as a team. You go out as a team, whenever you do. All of you sell as a team. You shouldn’t let them go into it blind. Just talk to them before you say yes to this. Hell, all of them except for Romanoff would never have been to that kinda party before. The first one of those parties, it’s like being swallowed into some monster, Tony, all of those people…”

Rhodey trails off, and now Tony knows just how wrong it can go.

“Oh no,” Tony gasps, horrified, “Barton is going to drop out from the ceiling with his bloody bow and arrows looking murderous, Thor will drink my bank accounts under the table, the Widow will smoothly make half of the males piss all over themselves, Captain America is going to maybe have a panic attack and definitely go on a rant about how he isn’t a dancing monkey, and Bruce is going to hulk out and get himself a chandelier hat. In front of my billion-dollar guests.”

“Mm hmm,” says Rhodey, clearly not paying attention.

“Rhodes. Honey bear, sour patch, my dear darling daisy, _get me out of this mess_ ,” hisses Tony, “Oh god, my billion-dollar guests.”

“Oh god, your billion-dollar you,” quips Rhodey, the betrayer. May his sweet, sweet Stark tech be replaced by Hammer.

Again.

“Save me,” pleads Tony.

“No,” says the bane of his life, “no, nope, absolutely not, I’ll enjoy the small earthquake that occurs when Pepper gets to know about the disaster.”

“Oh shit,” Tony cries, “Pepper isn’t going to be there, is she?”

“No, sir,” answers the emotionless void occupying the space that his long-missed friend Rhodey used to occupy, “She is on the West Coast, right, so will be helming their ball. Oh, by the way, I’ll be with her there.”

“Fuck you,” Tony replies succinctly, and cuts the call with an impatient, prima donna like sweep of his hand.

Tony puts his head in his hands and wonders who he would’ve been if he weren’t Anthony Edward Stark, just an unknown guy somewhere better, with more pleasant things in his head. Even if he was unknown, he’d still be mentally screwed, but Tony would take unknown mentally screwed over famous mentally screwed any day. And if people think he’s being thankless, he thinks, looking over at the Iron Man Suits in their glass display cases on the workshop walls, he deserves to be.

“Sir, the Black Widow is at the door,” announces JARVIS. Tony, because he’s defeated and stupid and tired and people should stop expecting things from him already, answers, “Let her in.”

“Yes, Widow,” he says, toneless, flat. She raises a dark brown eyebrow.

“I would think you would at least know my name, Stark.”

 _Yeah_ , he wants to say, _Natalia Romanova, I know, you’re a good spy but the KGB don’t have good enough firewalls—you should really have gotten someone to fix that, you with your record of burning up children’s hospitals and leaving people’s tongues cut out as a sign to the ones who find their mutilated corpse._

They’ve all done bad things, and Tony can forgive (she didn’t want to be Red Roomed, did she) to an extent, but the Widow tends to have an annoying talent for making it personal. The Vanko thing? He’s never ever forgiven S.H.I.E.L.D for their tactics. Tony Stark hates liars, because he himself is one, and doesn’t he loathe himself?

“I respect colleague confidentiality,” he replies, face blank, and if she manages to pick something up from that, he doesn’t quite care, “If you want me to fix your tech, I’ll get it done—a timeframe would be helpful.”

“Stark, stop with the drama.”

“I’m only dramatic in front of people I trust, Widow,” he says, looking up from the gauntlet in front of him at last. She’s changed her eye colour again and her hair is brown, and her skin is two shades whiter, “In informal conditions. I believe you understand.”

“Are you so unable to look past your own damn problems,” she asks, and there it is, emotion, flickering in the way she curls her nails into her palms. But it is probably, definitely all faked, so he just shrugs, “I don’t think I care to.”

“The Ball,” she growls, the words clipped and angry, “I don’t think Hawkeye will be able to do it.”

And Tony’s angry, okay, at his own self, at the man who he could’ve been were he not the son of Howard Stark, angry at the Black Widow for coming back here still in another disguise and expecting everything to be as it was, angry that she thinks he’ll do her some favours, so angry he knows whatever he’ll say will be what he will regret.

These words, words like these, said in anger, will be the ones to kill him. And what’s the worst thing—the worst thing is that he completely and totally means them (because Tony Stark’s a genius, isn’t he, always weighs the pros and cons and the casualties).

“Drug him,” he snarls back at her, watching shock colour her face for a split second before it turns stony, and the only thing he really, truly hates about these lines is now she’ll know he knows about her past, so he’s lost a tiny bit of the huge bargaining chip (God, he’s a monster), “He’s used to being a deceptive murderer’s lapdog, isn’t he?”

(He hates himself, and that may also be what kills him.)

*******

He’s going to buy Pepper a giant goddamn toy bunny, this thing he saw on the internet, and maybe it’ll have a stupid pun on it because it’s almost time for his flight to Malibu! Oh, he loves his flights to Malibu, and he loves that house, the clean lines of it, the way it perches on the cliffs, the way it was the first building to have JARVIS in it, the way it was where he built Mark II. And he adores Malibu in December, the way they’re close to Christmas, but in bikinis because they’re bloody proud.

(Or is that just all the supermodels?)

And hell, Kilian’s flirting with his honest to God _wife_ (he’s not cut out for anyone else; he thinks), and he still remembers when he’d started his cute venture, all the fire, and the suit’s faceplate popping open in it, Harley saying, “We’re connected,” Pepper falling, and in this twisted tragedy, she doesn’t come b a c k—

He shudders awake with a start.

“Babe.”

Pepper’s up already, her eyes clear, her hair slightly tousled.

“Tony, it’s 30th December 2013. You’re at your New York place. With me. I’m here, Tony, _darling_.”

He’s dissolved into tears, his face in the curve of her neck, her hands in his hair, going up and down his back, her nails scraping his skull, and they’re both crying now, and the lights are 15% on, and they’re falling apart, both of them, under this ceiling, and New York stretches out in front of the glass walls, and Tony misses the sea view he got from his Malibu bedroom, because that was one of his calm places, and she’s kissing his forehead, and he’s so thankful that she sits taller than him, is taller than him (even when he’s in the Suit, her natural height and her tallest heels manage to give her half an inch or so).

Tony Stark’s a genius, even when he’s shaking apart, so he knows that this is the time to first say it, not some suave wine and dine that would definitely end in sex, even though that would’ve been much less emotionally traumatising for all involved. He’s realest now, this is an admission and a warning and a prayer (I am snot-stained, I am wearing ripped trackpants and an MIT sweatshirt that used to be Rhodey’s, I am waking up from the nightmare of something that almost killed you, do you still want me).

He’s known it for so long. He slows the crying, and sits up, looks at her, eye contact, just in case this is the last time he gets to see her eyes because some people freak and she probably doesn’t feel the same, she never will, maybe she _doesn’t care_. Time stopped for him long ago, but now she looks like she feels it. Looking at her face, it’s like she knows now how he’s been living (she must feel so sad).

“I love you,” he says.

Tear tracks are still glistening on her cheeks, the sheets around her waist are crumpled, her hands are trembling ever so slightly between them, and she’s never looked more angelic.

Hell, how will he get over it if she doesn’t feel the same?

“Will that be all, Mr. Stark?” She answers, a question and a reply and nothing at all, but it’s clear: she knows. She always did. And she’s smiling. And she pulls him into a kiss. He goes with it, pulled into her, smashing into her, perfect and not at all at the same time, and he’s so relieved. Her lips are soft and comforting and he latches on to her like she’s all he’s ever known, like she’s knowledge and beauty and everything in between, and she smells of the soap she prefers and she tastes like the mints she has before bed, and he loves her so, so much.

It doesn’t feel like their first kiss, because that was desperation after almost dying, and Pepper had still been in her work clothes (and so had he, so had he), wearing that lipstick that tasted like cocoa butter and he’d had to be so careful with her, with the armour and all, and everything had smelled like smoke and dust.

He hadn’t truly trusted in it back then, thought he’d just fall into another one-night stand (though one he’d regret forever), but now. Now, he can believe in all the possibilities, all the ways they can go or not. Really, if Pepper leaves someday, he’ll kill himself, he knows, but it’s an honour to have her, to have this—and if she leaves, what will living mean, which is going to be his justification for suicide.

He knows these are morbid thoughts for when she’s kissing him—but she makes him think.

She tilts her head up, making him work for it, and _fuck thinking anyway_. What has he done by being intelligent—what really has he done, when he couldn’t replicate this? Her hair is soft, her skin is celestial, and he feels like he’s savouring little galaxies whenever she gasps into his mouth. God, it’s weirdly poetic, being in love. They break apart, and she doesn’t look shaken at all, and Tony knows that his eyes are wide and that his fingers are travelling in the vague direction of his mouth, but he can’t stop it. That was practically the most life-changing thing that has ever happened in all of existence; Tony doesn’t think anything will surprise him anymore.

Except for perhaps the discovery of the God Particle.

“Hnnghk,” articulates Tony. She raises an eyebrow, and hell, all the things he would kill to do, “That will be all, Ms. Potts.”

“We have a New Year thing all day tomorrow,” she tells him, lying back down, and Tony’s kinda glad and not at the same time, because he really is too tired for sex. He does the same, and they’re very close together, legs intertwined, his head on her shoulder, “that cute kid’s gonna be there.”

“Harley?”

“Ha,” she crows, “I knew you adored him.”

“That’s a stretch, Potts,” he says, because, what if he does, ugh, his image is in absolute _shreds_ over here, who’s ever going to believe he’s cool and unfeeling now? Harley certainly isn’t, what with all the new workshop and that handwritten note from ‘The Mechanic,’ he just told Pepper he loves her, Rhodey’s never bought that anyway—Happy! Even if he doesn’t believe it, at least Tony can count on him to be polite, “you already think he’s cute? Jesus, kid’s got everyone wrapped around his little finger.”

“I can’t resist huge eyes, and you know it, mister,” she grins, “brainy, too, I looked up his records and all, talked to his mom again, she’s nice.”

“I know, I know, we’re connected, Harley and I,” he yawns, “now sleep? I love you.”

“Yeah, sure,” she agrees, “I love you too.”

“Oh no,” he groans, horrified, “we’re going to become one of _those_ couples, aren’t we?”

“Hey, you started it.”

He’d been so scared, all through the Killian disaster, and so dissatisfied—it had been a bad time. But all these new people, all the new things he discovered about his own damn self, they helped. Frankly, looking at Happy in that bed had been so terrible he didn’t want anyone to see him like that and feel that hurt ever again. He’d grown reckless, and absolute in his own self-loathing. He’d wanted to get blown up, because of the guilt. And get blown up he had.

“The Suits,” he says in the darkness.

“Yes, I know.”

“You know I’m gonna be Iron Man again, right?”

“I know you, Tony,” she replies, “I can be angry, and I can be disappointed, but I can’t change you, because it would hurt me. I’m a selfish woman, honey.”

“I’m sorry,” he says because what else can he say?

“Just. Start again next year,” she orders him, “Give me one day. One day for a different dream.”

Because it’s 30th December and she’s Pepper, he agrees.

And he disgusts himself down to the very core for giving her hope, and carrying on with the charade even when he knows the Suits will kill him (he hopes she leaves him before then, because he doesn’t want her to see it happen, even though he knows she will).

*******

“I was following a lead on HYDRA that’s gone cold,” announces Rogers unexpectedly, striding into the main kitchen at 3 in the morning. Tony’s been on one of his engineering binges and he almost spills the coffee all over the table when he startles. God, jocks are going to be the death of him. He looks fresh out of the shower, and Tony appreciates the view, yes, but Captain America would be so much ~~more tolerable~~ sexier if Steve Rogers had his vocal cords ripped out with tweezers. He doesn’t say a word.

“Oh,” says Rogers, “I thought you were Nat.”

_Nat?_

Tony’s expression is bound to be condescending as all hell, so he sees it fit when Rogers continues, “Um, sorry, I just—you never come up to the kitchen, or this floor, really, and she’s the only one who’s here, mostly, so late…Clint is always on the sofas and whenever Thor rolls around he’s on the Wii, and Bruce sits near the windows, some zen thing of his.”

Tony turns his glare on to _scorching morons is fun_ , and Rogers flusters to a stop. Doesn’t he know it’s insensitive, flaunting his holy team-leader knowledge in front of noted bad conversationalist Anthony Edward Stark?

“You can stay here, though, if you want,” he says cheerily, and Tony wishes the earth could swallow him whole, “We got lots of coffee and conversation and all those things Hawkeye likes to—”

“Cap, just stop,” Tony interrupts, and Rogers looks like he’s been physically hit in the face by a time-travelling pom-pom, “I’ll help you if you need info for your HYDRA thing.”

“Seriously?” He says eagerly, and hell, Tony’s dealing with a child, “Nah, no, I wouldn’t make you wanna do anything you wouldn’t wanna.”

His accent’s thickened, and Tony wonders just how many things he doesn’t know about his teammate, things like the fact that his Brooklyn brogue emerges when he’s nervous.

“Are you always this golden retriever?” Tony sighs, “I’ll do it, Cap.”

“Thanks, you don’t know how much this means to me!”

“Steve, what did I tell you about talking to or trusting strangers?”

And there’s the Black Widow.

“Stop quizzing me, Nat, you told me not to, and I told you not to treat me like a godforsaken child, I’ve got common sense,” answers Rogers, completely oblivious to the chill in the Widow’s voice, or the way she’s all in gear, her neck adorned with a small amount of stray blood spatter.

“I told you right if I come back and you are talking to someone you barely know.”

He freezes, a demented, fast piano version completely butchering Swan Lake in his head. Ugh, Tchaikovsky. Tony takes a large, fortifying drink of his coffee. It’s potentially the only thing on his side. Oh, and there’s JARVIS, but the coffee is much more reassuring at the moment. Hawkeye enters. Tony gives up on his luck and decides that he will never, ever move out of his workshop without checking the others’ positions ever again.

“Nice joke, but this is Tony Stark. You may not recognize him because he hasn’t moved out of his workshop in seven years and has a funny beard,” replies Steve, and anyone can guess that this is a weak salvage attempt for a situation long shipwrecked.

“I’ll get you whatever you need, Cap, let’s move,” croaks Hawkeye, and Tony wants Hawkeye to confront him, not do this vague deflection technique (that he’s terrible at, by the way).

“No, I need the best for this. He can get information from their private servers, I’m not giving that up because you refuse to talk,” protests Rogers, and wow, he’s dumb, isn’t he?

“You don’t have faith in _my_ web, Steve?” Natasha asks.

Ooh. If Tony wasn’t in the middle of this little clusterfuck, he’d go get popcorn.

“Nat,” Rogers’ voice breaks suddenly, and Tony watches both the Widow and her little hawk’s stance get significantly more protective, “you know what—you know how much I cannot give this up. Not when I have the resources, and the strength, and the want—”

Tony cannot bear this. He said he’d help, he said it, and now he’s being forced to watch all this emotional drama when he should’ve left long ago, and something about Rogers’ expression is too vulnerable for words. How are they a team? How are they a team when they can’t even agree with each other on the smallest of matters? Jesus, it’s not like he’s taking Rogers’ heart or anything, it’s just intel.

“Back off,” he says finally, and all three heads in the room swivel to him, two threatening and one hopeful, “back the fuck off, Spy Kids. I don’t care in the least if I’ve offended you whenever you think I have—because I assure you, that was me doing my job. You guys kill people, I kill sentiments. Ugh, bad line, I know, but it’s true. It’s fair—most might say my way is fairer. Even this errand I have to run for Cap will be me doing my job, capiche? It will be swift and accurate and none of you will protest against it for those very reasons. At the end of it all, whatever I say or do gets the job done. Call me heartless, call me fake. Hawkeye went to the fundraiser, and an estimated 13 million shot up for the archery foundation. Just because he _showed up_. The way he socialized, the sympathy money—those go to different charities all on their own.”

The Widow looks murderous.

“I know you cared about his health,” he continues, “and I know all of you in this room feel I’m an egotistical megalomaniac. But I like to think I pushed his recovery a touch forward. Call it me trying to revive the corpse that is my self-esteem, but according to the data collected, as to how his interactions went up, I did do so. The thing you always forget when you’re trying to protect someone—your supposed villain may have gone through the same thing.”

“Stark, you know me. I don’t deal in my opponent’s backstory.”

He bares his teeth. “That would make you a bad espionage agent, and you aren’t one of those. As you just said, I know you.”

The tiniest hint of a smirk curls Hawkeye’s lips. “He’s not bad, Nat. Stand down.”

“Oh, the boyfriend approves,” snarls Tony, weary. Just because he made that whole speech about him doing everything for the good of the team doesn’t mean he’s still not pissed.

“Stark, I swear to God, one more pithy comment and I throw you out a window,” threatens the Widow, and Tony doesn’t know why exactly she hates him. Isn’t she Russian? Shouldn’t she hate Captain America?

“Been there, done that, got the t-shirt,” replies Tony airily, “didn’t hurt much, really.”

Why does she hate him? Bruce and he get along like a house on fire, Thor and he can talk happily without angry explosions, he expects Cap to keep his self-righteous trap shut after this intel he procures, and Hawkeye just called him ‘not bad.’ The Widow’s emotions are a mystery Tony doesn’t care much to solve; both of them are too like each other. He watches as she turns on her heel and leaves. Hawkeye sits down on one of the chairs at the table Tony’s drinking his coffee on; Rogers does the same.

“The mission didn’t go too well,” Hawkeye informs them, fingers tapping restlessly on the wood, “unnecessary civilian deaths were unnecessary. She’s been training in her gym for around nine hours non-stop since then. That’s why she’s in the black murderess gear even now. That’s part of the reason she was so—so tense. She needs rest, and I think she’ll go do that now, so thanks, Stark. Verbal confrontation is something she actively seeks out after a bad day, and when she feels like she loses, she goes to bed. It’s her thing. You guys shouldn’t have had to deal with it.”

“It’s fine,” he answers hollowly.

“We’re a team,” says Rogers, much in the same tone.

“We’re supposed to be,” corrects Hawkeye bitterly.

“No, I feel like we really bonded tonight,” sighs Tony, gulping down the last of his coffee. They laugh, and he asks, “You still want me to get what you want, Cap? Because I seriously, totally get it if you trust the Widow more—I mean, she’s been spying since before I was born or something, and you do know her better.”

“Hey, she’s okay with him,” blurts out Hawkeye, “that whole production? She left because she trusts Tony, not because she’s just a bit irritated. Don’t say you want Nat to do it if you’re scared of her, Steve, ask her to do it when you feel she’s the best for the job. Don’t insult her by not doing that bare minimum.”

“You can read her,” Rogers observes, surprised.

“No, I can’t. Today, though, she was just angry enough to let down her shields. For all I know, that could be a ploy to trick Stark into trusting her.”

“Oh god, spies,” Tony groans.

“Stark, I’d be very, um, indebted to you if you could find me some definitive HYDRA intel. She’s good at computers, but you’re the best, and something hinges on this,” he pauses, and Tony wonders just what digs away at the Captain quite so furiously, “Something personal. An old debt. They took my life away from me. The first one.”

Oh. _Oh._

Tony has to find out, whatever this is, because Rogers is going to get himself beaten the hell up, and Tony knows because the worst bad guys have always been the ones behind _something personal_ (Stane’s face floats in front of his eyes, and he’s going to spike his coffee when he gets down, he knows it). Tony doesn’t have the time or energy to care about Cap, but it’s going to be a monumental PR disaster, whatever gets uncovered—also he’s gotta know what makes America’s Sweetheart lose all rational sense and disagree with an irate Black Widow—and then almost burst into tears.

“I get it, HYDRA’s been alive pretty long, even after you dissolved or punched out Schmidt, you must be pissed,” drawls Hawkeye, rooting around in the refrigerator and coming up with pizza that looks old, but is probably not poisonous.

“Bullseye, Hawkeye,” says the Captain dryly, “that’s right on the money.”

“Yeah, I do that often—sometimes I think I should be a shrink, but then I think, uh, no, bad idea.”

“For everyone involved,” adds Tony, and he gets up to leave.

“Stark,” says Hawkeye, and his face is serious, whatever he’ll say won’t be a joke, but ask Tony if he cares at 3 in the morning, “Nat may hunt you out after this, so be careful. Also, you guys have your history, and I respect that, but I don’t see Nat and I beating up each other over whatever happened during all of the 90’s—God, Budapest alone. Don’t ruin this already ruined thing over ancient history.”

It’s funny how he thinks they’re not getting along because of 2011. Tony’s already forgotten half of that year.

“We’re fighting because of the team, Katniss,” Tony replies, “And the team’s not ancient history yet, but give it a few more alien invasions.”

“Hey,” starts the Captain, and Tony walks out, leaving the empty coffee mug on the table. All this, he feels—all this fragmentation and indecision is going to kill him one day, on some battlefield when they won’t have a plan for the enemy except for _burn them up_ , and the enemy will keep on arriving, as they always do, and Tony will have to do something big enough that will kill him just to get everyone’s damn attention. Just to make them listen, for once.

*******

“Hey, boss,” says Happy.

They’re driving on the traffic-clogged roads of New York, and this is one of those drives that Happy and he take for fun. Pepper’s gone to Tennessee (random factory checks; she sent a _ton_ of selfies—her with Harley and milkshakes; Potato Gun Mark XVI’s in the back, it has _miniature grills_ and Tony’s never been prouder) and Rhodey’s running errands for the Air Force (errands which Tony isn’t supposed to know about). So, there’s no fun happening, except for when he’s in his lab. Happy and he are just catching up now, but they’ve both been pretty quiet this time.

“How is the team?”

“Um,” answers Tony intelligently. Tony doesn’t really know. They work kinda better, and they’re okay enough to joke with each other, and at galas and all they tend to stick together more. They’re getting there, but Nick Fury’s still pissed about the pace they’re taking to do that.

“Speak, Tony,” commands Happy, and Tony remembers an alley and blood trickling down his chin, and _that was shit of them to do_. He’s a nice guy, always been in Tony’s corner, loyal to a fault. Happy’s also one of the few people who can get him to talk when he’s in one of his moods.

“It’s a team, Hap—but you gotta be there to know how fucked up it truly is or isn’t. It’s just…one moment it’s all okay, and the next it fractures. We’re all moody little kids, and it doesn’t help that each and every one of us has classified histories. Or in the case of Thor—it’s what you cannot believe. It’s a goddamn dumpster fire when it all goes wrong, and then one of us pours kerosene all over it. Hell, even Rogers messes up so many times, you’ve got to remember he’s just 28 or something. Natasha and I can’t trust each other anywhere but in the field. The Hawk’s fine, but by God does he need therapy. Bruce and I work well together, but we don’t really talk about anything that’s not science, which I guess is a problem.”

“It maybe is,” Happy agrees, a heavy hand on the horn. Tony looks out at the glittering skyscrapers, all of them always looking so new (since villains demolish everything whenever they come around, but that’s not the point), all of them lit the hell up with the same electricity that flashes in front of his windows every night (Thor has nightmares whenever he tries to sleep, which is every night).

“Yeah, yeah. But the point is—we’re better than we used to be. When it’s a good day, it’s a really good day, and at one point, that used to be too much to hope for.”

They’ve done drills in the huge gym, play-battles with robot enemies Tony built, fighting with a half-assed plan made by Steve Rogers and a Natasha Romanoff without caffeine, Bruce sitting on the metaphorical bleachers and helping JARVIS run the drill with the occasional input, Thor being used as just plain muscle, because Tony wasn’t ready for a scorched gym room, and Barton hanging from the ceilings. How he did it, no one could figure out and Natasha didn’t tell.

They’ve gone out for team meals, outings that started as photo ops but now Tony thinks they mean something, because they go to that hole-in-the-wall Indian place that helped Bruce when he was hiding, and to Cap’s favourite diner that ‘makes it like they used to,’ and to a weird, crazily expensive tea shop with a lot of glass that Natasha likes, to quite literally any colourful place that Thor picks impulsively, and to Barton’s waffle place that gives them a discount when they arrive too early or too late and help set the tables or clean the place up.

“The team’s co-existing,” he continues, flashing Happy a grateful smile as he takes the car through a Burger King drive-thru, “and quite honestly, thank God, because a lot of my damn money goes into housing, entertaining and arming those brats.”

“Boss Lady Eyebrow Raise Level?” Happy asks, and he scoffs a negative.

“They couldn’t waste that much money in 20 years, dumpling.”

“You could,” Happy retorts, “you go overboard, remember 2004?”

“Ugh,” groans Tony loudly, “It’s been 10 years. God, I want to go just a week without someone reminding me about 2004. Stark Law hated 2004. Whenever I go down there, it’s all snide remarks about that year.”

“Come on, boss, you deserve whatever they throw at you, that was a terrible year,” declaims Happy, “terrible. I hadn’t even been five years working for you, and you gave me that disaster. There wasn’t even Ms. Potts back then. It was all supermodels in fountains and trashed hotels. There are still no concrete records of how many people you slept with, or how much money you spent that year. You literally almost bankrupted _Vegas_ , Tony.”

Tony stretches out a hand for the cheeseburgers, and they drive back on the road. When he puts a hand in the bag, the burgers are warm—it’s nice. Reminds him of the first shock of sobriety after a long night drinking and the resulting hangover, reminds him of finally, finally looking at a finished product.

“But you got over it. Whatever shit state of mind you were in, you got over it, and Jesus, I’d never been gladder,” says Happy softly, taking the cheeseburger Tony offers him, “you know, 2002 to around when you met Pepper in 2005, we call those the self-destruct years, me and Matt. There was a time, a huge span of time, during which all of Stark Law was prepping for your funeral.”

“That’s a lot of paperwork,” says Tony weakly, “they kept it a secret.”

“Let ‘em keep it, Tony. You know how Matt gets about his secrets. Just wanted you to know. Wanted you to think.”

People though I was going to die, thinks Tony Stark, in the middle of traffic and skyscrapers and Avengers Tower on the horizon. People thought he was crazy and suicidal. Turns out he isn’t quite as good at acting as he’d always made himself out to be. But what can he do with this new piece of information except for feel bad about himself?

“I’m fine, Happy.”

“You’ll burn up,” warns Happy mildly, but there’s a worry lacing his words, his hands tense on the steering wheel, knuckles white as he clutches his burger, “and we’ll be left to pick up the ashes, and no one, absolutely no one wants to do that. People care about you. You’re manic, flying around at night even when there’s no threats and the time for your patrol’s long goddamn gone. I don’t think you’ve slept in months, and JARVIS wants an intervention just for the number of hours you spend in the lab.”

“I’m searching for a solution,” Tony tries to defend himself, but he knows it doesn’t work, the set of Happy’s jaw resolute, “I don’t want to continue this thing when I grow old; God, I want to retire—so I’m searching for a solution, a way to world peace and unicorns.”

“Tony,” replies Happy, “one of those things doesn’t exist, and Loki can magic unicorns up for you. This relentless searching—it will finish you, and hell, but I’m worried.”

“Happy,” Tony starts, and says nothing.

“Goddamn you,” Happy swears, the words sharp, rushing over each other as he punctuates it with a savage bite of his cheeseburger, “ _Goddamn you_.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony says, and it’s not enough. His left hand is fisted up and throbbing, his eyes are tearing up, and it’s not enough. Intellectually, he knows it never will be: they love him too much to be satisfied with empty apologies.

But they love him.

Which is why Happy sighs, “Change of subject, I feel like a mother hen,” and Tony takes that opportunity to say, “Did you know I’m planning to make the Stark Castle in Dubai hot pink or neon green, as the Potts Towers have got to be all professional?”

“What do you want to listen to?”

“Um, Vienna, you like Billy Joel, I remember.” Happy smiles at him when he answers.

Someday, he’s going to be somewhere, reeling under the weight of all the hurt and pain he’s caused, frankly staggering with it, enough to be reckless and crazy and what other people might term as heroic. He’s going to be utterly stupid, care about everything, everyone, too much—he’ll completely negate all of the lies he’s ever cultivated about himself and rush headlong into the flames.

He’s going to misread a message, make a mistake in the hilarious movie his life is, and before he’ll know it, he’ll be staring death in the face, middle fingers raised. He’s got to make a plan; he’s got to pick a side—can’t have both the Suit and the lovey-dovey domestic paradise; but by God he wants them both so painfully, it’s difficult to live knowing what could be. This weird identity ballet he’s failing at dancing in front his friends and colleagues is going to kill him.

*******

_“If you step out that door, you are an Avenger.”_

Again, his penthouse flooring is completely trashed. Just. Completely. Trashed. He blames Romanoff, it was her idea to have the party up here. (No, he actually blames himself, when has he ever not—he created Ultron, he didn’t see the fact that Obie was trading illegal arms that shattered Maximoff’s childhood, he wasn’t fast enough to maximise Sokovian fatalities, he couldn’t save Quicksilver, god he was armoured _,_ why was he not better, why wasn’t he more fucking _intelligent._ )

Tony Stark, he’s genius personified, everyone. He’s got vodka tonight, vodka and the bits of the peace-bots that Ultron took over scattered at his feet. I wish you wouldn’t drink as much, Pepper had said, and then he’d snapped at her. He hates that he did it, but hell, he had to. Maybe if he acts out, she’ll come back to his side of the country.

Rhodey had had to leave pretty quickly, apparently, there was a situation. His mouth had been angry, and his lips pursed, so Tony had let him go. Tony had let everyone leave, had let Steve go to sleep after 45 hours of strategy planning what they could do better next time (because there would always be a next time, they weren’t stupid), and he’s been sitting here forever, watching the sun fall.

He's pondering just what the words Hawkeye had said meant, that whole motivational spiel for the Scarlet Witch (the name’s been approved by six focus groups; Cosmo thinks it came up with it, but Stark PR, and Jen Walters from Stark PR, know better). Tony doesn’t know if he’s stepped out that door, which he thinks is a small problem. Tony doesn’t think he’s an Avenger, he’s the worst out of them all—the only reason he’s here because he’s like their weapons sugar daddy.

“Hey, Tony,” he hears Rogers say, and he doesn’t want to answer, but Steve picks his way through the mess, and finds one of the non-demolished barstools, and makes the effort to drag it and sit near him, so Tony assumes it would be rude if he didn’t.

“Where’s the Red Devil?” He asks, instead of a greeting, and if it’s a bit too sharp, well. The vodka might mellow him down at some point in the conversation. The sigh Steve heaves manages to get his disapproval across, but Tony was primed and ready for that reaction.

“All business, then. She left for S.H.I.E.L.D around when I left the Compound to come here, getting some training or the other. I’m assuming Vision would know the specifics.”

 _Fuck_ , the loss of JARVIS hurts like a permanent poisonous, twisting knife in the gut, and he knows how painful that is. Just that the pain never seems to dull. Tony will never get used to not having JARVIS around. He remembers his private nervous breakdown just after he’d talked to the team, remembers the way he’d stared at the ceiling, shaking and crying, but JARVIS had never gotten him down from it. JARVIS hadn’t told him he was in New York and that the weather was clear and that the stock index was pretty okay actually, just four points higher than the previous weekend—

Tony’s been avoiding thinking about Vision for too many reasons. He wasn’t able to talk to him normally, after all was lost and the battle was won, he just didn’t look at him—put on headphones and AC/DC and took out the projections for whatever new thing he was then working on.

Tony misses JARVIS, missed him when Pepper called him in a panic and said, “Oh God, Tony, oh God, are you all right? Tony, honey, talk to me, are you okay, it’s so _quiet_ over here, Tony,” missed him when Rhodey stood with him at this very place before leaving, shoulders shaking with silent sobs, missed him when he woke up, mid still foggy with sleep, hurting from a hangover, and accidentally said, “J, you acting pricey this morning. Fine, I’ll bite, sorry for whatever I did, what’s the time?” He didn’t realize that JARVIS wasn’t there for a full two minutes before he fell back into the bedsheets, struggling to console himself with nothing. Tony is sorry for all he did, for everything.

He remembers 2011, a donut shop, saying, _I don’t want to be in your super-secret boy band,_ and wishes he’d made his point with his lawyers. Lone wolf with an occasional Rhodey was so much easier than this pain. He throws down the vodka down his throat and throws Steve a look for good measure. Steve puts his hands up, good man.

“Sorry,” he says, and Tony grabs the neck of the fucking bottle, because oh, the irony.

“Seriously, Rogers,” he rasps out, the vodka warming his stomach, he hasn’t eaten anything for days, “I’m a mass goddamn murderer, and you, you cinnamon roll bitch just apologized to me.”

He throws ‘cinnamon roll’ in there only to make it kinda light.

“Tony,” says Steve. Tony can hear the pity in his voice—he soaks it up for exactly one second before the emptiness of the Tower pulls at him and he recalls what he’d seen when he’d gone down to JARVIS’s physical servers. All gone, thanks to Ultron. “You’re not a killer, Tony,” Rogers continues, “You’re a hero. So many people all over the world call you a hero, you can’t do this to yourself.”

“They don’t know the numbers,” Tony counters, rage rising like the tide, vision red, “fucking hell, they don’t see how many people the weapons killed, how much damage I could’ve prevented being Iron Man, they just see the lies. And yeah, those lies are pretty skilful. I’d think me a hero, too. But I’m just a fool—a fool with too much money and not enough sense, and I should’ve been locked up a long time ago.”

“You don’t see how many you’ve saved!” Steve shouts, resorting to deep breaths when he clenches his steel sipper too hard and it protests, “goddamn it all, Tony, but you’re a guilt-drowned man—you can’t be like this, you’ll never move on. And whatever self-loathing tells you: it is actually important to a hell lot of people that you move on. The Hulk, for one. Hates seeing you sad, or in any danger, or even pouting.”

Humour, it’s a damn nice coping mechanism.

“All those little kids with the Iron Man gloves, and the reactor imitations taped to their chests and the get well soon cards,” Rogers tells him, gently taking the vodka bottle, Tony’s staring into space, “You’re an Avenger to them, a superhero. Kids aren’t stupid, Tony. Would you make them wrong just to be right, to feel worse, to feel what you don’t deserve to feel?”

Tony stays quiet, and he hates it.

“Bruce said I needed to find that kind of doctor,” he grumbles finally, and Steve puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezes.

“I needed to revamp my resumé, living in this Tower tends to give one self-esteem issues,” he replies, tamping down on a laugh, “Ms. Potts alone—enough to make you think like you haven’t done anything with your life, are nowhere near as capable as you should be, and why are you a national hero anyway?”

Tony laughs. “She is pretty awesome.”

“I remember when I once met her in the kitchen. Since I hadn’t, like _met_ her before, I tripped all over myself offering to do stuff and calling her ma’am. Clint thought was hilarious. He, and all of us were duly impressed and then very terrified when she and Nat hugged like old friends and immediately began talking about Gucci’s latest disaster line. No one could figure out how they knew each other.”

“Um,” Tony murmurs, “Classified? Hell, remember the time you first met Rhodey? Disaster. A polite one, but still a disaster.”

“Yeah,” Steve grins, “JARVIS announced him as Lt. Colonel Rhodes, and there I was, saluting, because he was like a modern Air Force legend even before he was War Machine, I read about it, and so Thor did that too, and he was wearing his full Asgardian armour, Mjolnir and all, and when Rhodey came in, he did it, too, like a reflex.”

“And then you all argued about who should’ve actually saluted to whom, I don’t think there was a winner. Probably you, though, because Thor just did it because you did it, and Rhodey’s point was all nerdy whimpering and ‘but he’s Captain America! And I am but a poor servant of the great glorious America!’ Yeah, it was funny,” Tony reminisces, “JARVIS did shit like that just to be a dick, sometimes. I loved him. So much. He was a part of me, you know? I made him, but then he grew, and was amazing and different, and I needed something like that, every day…I don’t know. JARVIS was home. JARVIS and DUM-E and You and Butterfingers and me, we were the Lost Boys. JARVIS hated that comparison, by the way. Made PowerPoints and everything arguing his stance. He hated goddamn Wendy.”

“Didn’t everyone, literally anyone with any taste?” Rogers asks dryly, and Tony notices that his hands have stopped shaking and he’s released the way he was almost guarding the vodka, guarding it from Tony.

“Cap. I am not going to die.”

He doesn’t say ‘I am not going to kill myself,’ because he remembers 2012 (back when they were young and Tony still had the energy to hate the superhero business, not this cold resignation that he feels nowadays), Bruce Banner on the Helicarrier with a sceptre. _I got real low, so I put a bullet in my mouth. The Other Guy spit it out._ He doesn’t want Steve to remember that. It’s shitty—suicide attempts when they fail are like having everything planned out, and then that plan just not working. ~~It’s the worst feeling~~

“Well, you’re saying it like you think I’ll believe you, but I don’t. I really don’t, and I’m going to be away for a while now, with all the Winter Soldier business, so you need to hear this, because if I don’t wanna come back and find you with a dead arc reactor in the middle of your chest. You need to know, Stark—the Avengers, we need you. That’s more concrete than us caring for you or considering you a friend, even though we do those too. But you like data and things you can science, so I’m just trying to get through to you before I go.”

Tony’s touched, even though the ‘dead arc reactor’ thing is kind of inaccurate, because he got the thing removed, but he’s touched, nevertheless.

“God, why does everyone think I’ll kill myself? Uh, don’t answer that,” he says sharply, “how are we going to carry on?”

There are so many problems, the Hulk-In-Space thing, the fucking government, their own team, and Tony knows it’s gonna kill him, all his problems, all of these things that he’s done, Atlas under the weight of the sky, he’s going to melt away under the sheer impossibility, the improbabilities, the way all the jigsaw puzzles just won’t fit in the end.

“Simple, we do it together,” Captain America answers, smiling, looking at the windows, looking at the sky, “we assemble.”

*******

_James Buchanan Barnes._

Tony knows who the Winter Soldier is—could’ve gotten to know it a long time ago, but he and JARVIS had respected HYDRA’s privacy.

“Sir, what work will you do if I find all the villains?” JARVIS had said.

Tony wishes he’d gotten to know just so he could’ve warned Rogers. Just so he could’ve been a better…friend. Hell, he had the resources, he had the time, why hadn’t he…? Tony knows why, though.

Steve Rogers has always been almost fanatic in his pursuit of this particular bad guy. Tony didn’t want to disturb whatever ties the Captain may have to the past—he knows full well what it feels like to have ghosts that just don’t leave, and Cap’s always been the kinda guy to solve his problems alone.

Exhibit A: The recent Helicarrier mess in the Potomac, caused by his fight with the Winter Soldier, and half of S.H.I.E.L.D, who all turned out to be HYDRA agents! Special Vintage Exhibit: The whole ‘freeze-the-bombs-and-die-alone-in-the-arctic’ thing in the late 1940’s.

The thing about The Avengers, at least these ones (Tony thinks, hopes, there is a multiverse, because they can’t be the only one), is that they are led by a pair of loners. They’re not a team. They’re not a team—they’re like a bunch of colleagues at a dead-end job who bonded. But the thing is, they’re the only ones, so they have to carry on. Yeah, they’ll fight the threat, and look damn good doing it, but they won’t feel good doing it _together_.

Tony sees all the fan accounts and all the fucking fanfiction talking about movie nights and remembers that cold, cold premiere of Nolan’s gritty latest that Barton had to escort Rogers out of because of PTSD. But he doesn’t dismiss anything—it’s good for the PR, and he likes people to have hope, if that’s what makes them happy.

Hell, he feels shitty, and he does not for one moment believe that Nick Fury is dead. Fuck, he _knows_ Fury isn’t. He traced the guy at his own bloody gravestone, which was predictable enough that Tony assumed Fury had wanted to be found. But whatever. Nicky looked like he had plans, so Tony didn’t call him. Why disturb the one who’s got it all sorted out? On a different note, he knows and resents the fact that they didn’t just call him to do the hacking, even if he was in New York, he’s Tony Goddamn Stark. He didn’t get that summa cum laude for nothing. It would’ve been so much easier than that complicated chip manoeuvre Hill tried to defend when he met her after she (obviously) passed her interview.

“Stark,” she’d said, “don’t lecture me about my job. You owe us one, by the way, did you know you were in danger?”

“Maria, honey, no one, _no one_ , puts me in danger except for my own self,” he’d replied, bitter and it showed, “Remember the nuke?”

Obnoxious, he knows, but it’s true. It’s always been that way. It doesn’t work any other way. He’s always been the catalyst—no one can presume to just bomb him where he lives, unless he specifically told them to. HYDRA didn’t have his permission, so even if the Captain and his friends failed, the Tower would still be standing. It’s not braggadocio, it’s just plain and simple fact—the Iron Man isn’t the only thing protecting this place.

Where he lives is his home turf—you can’t beat him there unless you’ve got him already compromised. In the case of the Mandarin, he gave them his address, taunted them, and was angry about Happy being hurt; it was obvious, practically predicted that the Malibu house would be a pile of rubble. That doesn’t stop him from feeling sad about it though, that was such a sexy house.

Rogers had been found on the riverbank, and Romanoff had mouthed off to a bunch of senators on Capitol Hill (good for her!), and Tony knows that the Falcon’s (Sam Wilson, VA physical therapist and Air Force on need basis) wearing the wings that Stark Industries made for the EXO Falcon trial tests years ago, when he was still at college (it had been an idea of Rhodey’s, actually), and he’s okay with that. He’s practically given everyone their weapons, so this is cute. It’s like his gifts to them, he thinks as he moodily spins a hologram.

“Tony,” Rhodey had groaned, “People will die.” They did.

“Rhodey,” Tony had replied, “you didn’t.”

They were both always right, then—Tony’s made some mistakes since. But they should’ve told him someone finally passed the human trials. It was a pity Danvers never wanted to wear the wings—she always said that she liked flights better and didn’t want to feel like a synthetic chicken. Which were both two very good reasons, but if she had tried the wings Tony would’ve known to stop looking for the last few traces of Project Pegasus.

He knows what happened—freak explosion, assumed dead. Those were the official government files. When he sacked S.H.I.E.L.D, their files told a different story. The story of the very first superhero. Not Cap’s trashcan steroids—Danvers had the whole-ass deal; alien blood, no possible limit found to her powers, _and_ a cool suit. Apparently, aliens were real. And S.H.I.E.L.D (and by infiltration, HYDRA) has known since forever. Also, Danvers’ cat called Goose? Not actually a cat.

Where is she, then?

Space?

Tony crumples up a holographic idea and throws it in the holographic trash can and gets up. Stretches. Removes a laughing Carol Danvers in a flight suit from his mind. He won’t tell Rhodey—let him be shocked if she chooses to return. And Rambeau must know. Even S.H.I.E.L.D wouldn’t be that sadist. He hasn’t talked to Pepper in a while. They’re okay, she’s just very, very busy these days—putting out the little fires that his existence causes in the stock market is something that she still likes to do, and she messages him if she hears a particularly juicy rumour. He misses her, yes, but he also doesn’t want to disturb her. Sometimes she gets irritated, sometimes he’s a brat to her—it’s rough, being in the superhero business the opposite side of the country. There’s a call—the ringtone is Killer Queen. It’s Romanoff.

(It’s The Element Song for Bruce—that number hasn’t rung in a long, long while.)

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Stark,” she says. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard her say hello. Oh, he’s cataloguing things about her—probably means he likes her and will be sad when she dies.

“I don’t have time for formality, honey.”

“You’re rich, make time. I’m calling you about the fact that Captain America is going to have a mental breakdown, and it will not be pretty.”

Tony leers, even though she can’t see him. “Is there _anything_ about that man that isn’t pretty?”

She sighs, and the area she’s in has bad network, because it crackles. “You wouldn’t like him when he’s in one of his Bucky moods.”

“I don’t like any mood of his, Nat, and don’t you have an on-call therapist? Heard he _flies_ to his patients, he’s so quick.” Honestly, the jibe just slipped out, low and mocking, and he’s glad for the fact that his voice is just naturally sarcastic unless it’s one of the safe people, because a normal person would count this as progress. Also, that was a terrible Falcon pun. Tony’s gonna be making so many more.

“Find. James. Buchanan. Barnes.” Her voice is tense, and she sounds like a woman at the end of her rope.

“Oh no, you sound like you’re not a robot, Ms. Widow. Special memories?”

She cuts the phone. Oh, he hates his teammates who don’t even thank him. Just because he’s rich doesn’t mean he has time to find all the ~~boyfriends~~ old buddies who allegedly fall off trains and become Terminator and then have unknown history with the Red Room’s ballerinas.

“FRI, could you possibly throw up a search for the Winter Soldier—keep sending the results to the Black Widow and Captain America only, I don’t want to know. Private server.”

“Absolutely, boss.”

He doesn’t know why he keeps doing this. He doesn’t owe them anything. But it would only be good for the team if Cap was fine again, and not overflowing with all that 29-year-old anger. Tony doesn’t care about Rogers’ WWII experience—he’s still young, prone to mistakes. And if he wants to go hunt a killing machine, sing Kumbaya to it and expect the brainwashing to just melt away, and if the Black Widow’s allowing him to do that (her judgement has always been a little skewed in his favour, but Tony’s used to it), Rogers better start now. Full steam ahead on the loud singing—maybe Tony will send them a guitar or two. Won’t that be nice of him?

“The suggested outline for what you named the BARF project’s here.”

“Who dealt with it, FRI, I put a huge department on there, gave them a good budget and everything.”

“Quentin Beck, boss. Just a slight…change from what you wanted originally. Actually, it’s a pretty big change.”

Tony waits.

“He wants it to be tangible. Weaponized. The illusions—he wants them to be weaponized, giant weaponized mammoths that don’t actually exist.”

Tony puts his head in his hands. _Goddamn it._ He knows he should’ve dealt with BARF himself, but Ultron and then all the Sokovia rebuilding had taken all his attention for a long time. Also, he didn’t think that he’d hired a foetus supervillain, bloody hell.

“Scrap it all. Get it back to me, private but not untraceable. And I don’t want him, or any of the people who have an emotional or mental stake in that project here.”

Rash actions make bad consequences, babe, says the Pepper in his head, but Tony thinks, I have to protect people, and that means those guys not having access to the dangerous tech here. The Tower’s basically supervillain heaven. He won’t be harsh, will give a good amount of money—but he needs that particular plan dead. BARF is for helping with fucking therapy and allaying PTSD and all the things he’d wanted to have after Afghanistan. BARF is meant to be an affordable, high-class treatment; he’s going to do a presentation on it someday, distribute it very low-cost with help from the September Foundation.

BARF is meant to be good, hence the funny acronym. A physically painless way of seeing the past. Painless and accurate. Not a weapon, never a weapon. God, Tony was done making weapons for the masses in 2008, don’t they get the memo? Sometimes the Department of Defence still calls him up, talking about the J series and how efficient it was. Yeah, he always says, efficient at getting shrapnel stuck in my damn chest, and then the person at the other end of the line laughs awkwardly and hangs up quickly after the formalities.

People have no tact, especially when they want something. And that’s what will kill him, the utter artlessness in the way normal people walk and talk, the way they just keep going, keep doing whatever what dumb shit they were doing before, perfectly, like they meant to make mistakes all along—each and every one of Tony’s errors is like a forest catching fire in the middle of an ocean, a total oxymoron.

Each and every one of Tony’s mistakes sends him to his bloody knees, shaking with the effort required to keep it all together, unable to say sorry because he’s so busy struggling not to make it worse. That’s what will kill him, all the discrepancy between people and their little faults, and the blunders he makes. The huge uncrossable void between his follies and others stubbing their toes. Because most people can recover from it. But Tony? Tony will die. 

Absolutely no tact. He smiles wearily as ‘Born In The USA’ rings in the lab.

“Cap, what can America do for you?”

*******

“Hey,” Clint Barton says, and Tony swears under his breath.

“Jesus, warn a man before you _drop out of his ceiling_.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, Stark.”

“What do you want, Hawk-ass? How’re the kids?”

“Nothing right now, and the kids are good. Growing.”

“That’s what they’re good at.”

Clint chuckles.

“You know, Nat doesn’t know her birthday. The Room—she said that all of them had the same birthday there. 1st January.”

Tony considers nothing, keeps the blowtorch on. He doesn’t really know why Barton came to him about all this—whatever crisis he’s having, Tony’s not the man to deal with it. Hell, his own life’s falling to shambles, he hasn’t seen Pepper or Rhodey for a pretty long time. It hurts, but none of them can be free. Tony wishes he weren’t himself.

“So, we just never celebrated her birthday. Even at S.H.E.I.L.D, we didn’t. Her first year there, everyone was too wary of her being a KGB spy, and as the years went by, no one did it. I guess it would’ve broken the rhythm or something.”

Tony hums so that Barton knows he’s listening.

“Very long ago, I thought I loved her, but not as a guy loves his best friend. Back then it was all-consuming and fatal. I would’ve gotten myself killed, loving her that way when she didn’t. I loved her so much, and it just screwed with my mind and blurred the lines of friendship for me. She has always been better at knowing how people feel, always. So, she wasn’t surprised when I told her. We weren’t in a relationship then, just the occasional post-mission falling into bed together. I wanted to be in one. She shut me down. Of course, she did. I was such a douche to her after that, I guess that’s one thing I regret. One of the few things in my whole life. She was kind. She said she knew that I wouldn’t feel that way forever, that it was just a passing infatuation. I asked her how she could know anything if she didn’t know when she was born. If she didn’t know anything about herself.”

Barton isn’t tearing up or anything like that, but his face is very, very blank and his hands are very, very still.

Which is why Tony scoffs, “Past you sounds like an asshole.”

“Past me deserves that,” Clint agrees, relaxing, “we patched up, of course, we always do, it’s kind of a thing, but I never apologized for that. I think we both just made a non-verbal pact to never talk about it again. I wanna do something about it that apologizes, but we don’t have to talk about it.”

“You’re terrible at social stuff, Barton,” Tony sighs, “Just talk to her, I’m sure she’s forgiven you by now.”

“Yeah, she has, I know that, but I just—I want to make it special.”

“Bruce isn’t here,” Tony says. He doesn’t know why he says it, but he does, and Clint winces.

“Yeah, she likes him.”

None of them are admitting that Bruce might be dead. The Avengers may not be a good team, but they are the best at denial. Screw you, X-Men.

“So, what do you want, a party? They’re all still out there, searching for the Winter Soldier. Rogers will come if I call him, but Romanoff?”

“She’ll come if I call her. I guarantee it. So, The Avengers, most of past S.H.I.E.L.D, and Nat has a few friends here and there. Can you make this important? A ball or some function, maybe, otherwise she’ll suspect something.”

“We’ll invite your family, too—let’s do this properly. Um, yeah, ball’s good, The Avengers can release some new philanthropic stuff, grants and all, and the one we give her can be called The Birthday Fund, dedicated to giving traumatised, orphaned kids a good party. With a special present every 1st Jan. Ooh, Black Widow will be like their Santa!”

“That’s too much,” says Clint lowly, his head ducked. Tony thinks he’s teary-eyed now.

“Whatever, you told me a story, the story was sad, I want to do this. I think it’s an okay gift. Are red and black okay with you for the dress colours and all that stuff?”

“You know I don’t know shit about all this rich person stuff,” groans Clint, and he sounds okay, not choked, “Keep a bit of white in there, and maybe something um, Phil would’ve liked—something that wouldn’t occur to most of the people there but the ones who really knew him.”

“Fine, we’ll auction Captain America’s suit measurements to a room of top-tier fashion houses, Coulson liked his formal wear sharp. If Nat likes any specific food or anything, even if it’s across the world, tell me. I can get it here. I’ll talk to a professional about it all.”

“Thanks, Tony. I know this is you just being nice and all eccentric billionaire, but it means a lot. Like, a lot.”

Tony doesn’t know why he keeps doing all this. He owes them something, it’s his sanity, probably, because he can’t be doing all this out of kindness. Yeah, if The Avengers and all weren’t here, he would’ve had nothing to do, and would’ve definitely lost it. Clint Barton’s gone. Good, he can work. He shoots an email to his CEO and the PR department about it, just to let them know. This could be huge. This could be good. Tony likes good, these days.

Tony likes nice, likes the way the air feels against the Suit when the villain’s vanquished, likes the cold of a compress at his neck, his back, likes going up to the common floor for bad company and worse coffee when he feels alone, likes the fact that he’s supposed to be safe with the team around, so everyone isn’t worrying about him. God, he’s gone and turned domestic. All he needs is a few cats (Alpacas? Alpacas.) and a retirement announcement. Ugh. Maybe a soccer-mom van to go with that, really get some headlines. Harley will enjoy the sight of him in one of them so much. Probably make it go viral, the brat.

Tony has made a lot of mistakes in his life, and he thought that the Avengers Initiative was one of them too. Possibly it’ll turn out to be, who has ever predicted the future right. But for now, he thinks they’re all okay. Maybe not movie-night or group orgy level okay (seriously, fanfiction is amazing, and Tony wishes he were free enough to read _everything_ ), but they get along. They know each other, know how each of them think, know how the machine will move before the gears even start to fit into place. Or is that just him being optimistic and foolish? He sometimes wishes he were more cynical, that he wasn’t a guy so easily softened by a few things going right. Tony doesn’t want to be a marshmallow, but he feels like he’s become one, which is…quite terrifying, to say the least.

He twirls a pen in his fingers—why, oh why is Thor off-world again, Thor’s fun to be around. Tony also misses Bruce, and hopes Thor finds Bruce or something as equally coincidental and far-fetched. That would be nice, now, that would be a pretty bit of luck to find. He likes being a superhero, but he hates that he’s just so unlucky most of the time—it’s always the worst-case scenario that happens.

Like, you think that one villain might choose to not have a useless monologue all set up and ready to go, but they always do, and they have to stand around and be polite before getting the guy all cuffed up in the boring way. Like theatre. The audience shouldn’t boo unless the situation gets really dire. And most of the times, it really doesn’t, the villains they get are lame.

The last bad guy Tony liked was Loki—the guy had a bit of pizzazz to him, got them all hooked, was dramatic and all. That helmet alone. But Tony had the feeling that that was a puppet Loki. He still does, sometimes, when he has a 2012 nightmare—before waking up drenched in sweat, he observes. The half-crazed, almost desperate look in the god’s eye before he threw Tony out the window. The way his eyes had seemed to grow brighter, sharper after being tossed around by the Hulk— “I’ll have that drink now, if you don’t mind,”—when earlier, it was all ‘kneel blah blah blah kneel.’ The way he didn’t have full control over the people he enchanted (Selvig made an escape plan to take out the Tesseract, and all it took for Barton to be rescued was a few blows to the head). The way his motivations were never well underlined, and in Loki, Tony had seen a fellow perfectionist. There was no way he attacked a planet just because of being jealous of Thor, for fuck’s sake, or just to rule it and be happy with that. No one would be happy with just Earth, least of all a god who’s seen everything.

Tony wonders what it’s like, space. The nice parts of it.

It’s going to poison him, inside out completely, this curiosity (killed the cat, you know—hell, does Tony hate Schrödinger, maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t; it’s a lot like the status of that poor fucking cat, his feelings towards the guy) to know all about what almost killed him, and Tony knows from experience that what almost kills you doesn’t make you stronger, it gives you trauma. Yeah, that’s going to kill him, his relentless pursuit of what already gave him fucking heart failure. Wanting to know about and/or control space, space, space is going to leave him burnt to a crisp, paralyzed, ugly in his last few moments.

At least it’ll make a good story. He hopes Christine Everheart doesn’t get it before everyone else.

(She probably will. He can dislike her, but he has to give her this—she’s good at her job.)

*******

_“The Futurist, gentlemen! The Futurist is here! He sees all! He knows what’s best for you, whether you like it or not.”_

Oh, Tony knows. The Hawkeye shoots true. And the funny thing is, he doesn’t know just how accurate that statement was. At least, the first few parts of it—all the exclamation marks. Barton’s always been better at the exclamation marks, anyway, better at rash emotion.

In a freezing cave in Siberia, he came to too many decisions. Too many of them. He knows he shouldn’t have had—that was him at his angriest and saddest and most goddamn confused, which is not the best decision-making mindset for a genius, for someone like him. But he made them, and he made them like he was setting the foundation for something.

It was worryingly easy, with the cold freezing his blood as it flowed, the gouge from Captain America’s shield (right in the middle of the reactor, hell, he didn’t think Rogers was fighting to _kill_ , Tony sure wasn’t) letting in the frigid air. And Tony had sworn to Satan, to God, to science, to himself and all he’s ever failed at, to all the people he’s ever had the fortune to love and lose, that he was going to do a few things.

When you make a building, first, you dig deep. Deep enough to check if it’s bad anywhere, if all that’s buried in the soil will affect the way the structure stands. You make sure it’s all legal, that nothing’s gonna come back to bite you in the ass (or stab you in the chest with a goddamn shield, a defensive weapon, god, the lovely, lovely irony), that the guy in the government is yours. When you’ve checked everything properly, you get your cement and your steel, and you lay the ground. The roots of the place you’ll own. Your ground.

The second thing you do is get your people back. If you never had people at all, you find them. You be good. You build up your forces, you ask them how they want it and how they think you want it. You scrap ideas—you make people cry and leave and come back, you make them be imperfect (looking at you, _Nat_ , you betrayer, you perfect, perfect deceiver) in front of you, because that’s the only way the thing’s gonna stand strong, stand tall. You make them write plans, blood and tears, because that’s the only way they’ll care.

Then you get the glass. All the pretty things. You lay the plans out. You build on the floor you built. You begin. You break some things; you win some battles. And you don’t leave them alone. You don’t leave to do other stuff—you don’t have other stuff to do, even if you do, you’re making tonnes of steel and cement and glass, and if you leave that mess alone, it’s going to fall, kill someone. That’s why you don’t leave the people alone, because if you do, they fight. They forget about what they were doing. About themselves.

It begins to grow, then. You meet new people. Some you like, some you hate. Not important—the people you started with stay with you, because they were there from the start. Forever. You guess they want to see their glass-metal child grow, but they’re taking care of you too, somehow. You don’t thank them; they know. They know you. You watch the building grow—more floors, closer to the sun with each passing second. But it’s not an Icarus situation, because there is the experience of the old ones. You realize you’re the old ones. You smile; they laugh.

When does it end, you ask your gods. When is it done—when will my people relax, I love them. Build a roof, they say. Watch it end. And like all the old clichés, the old stories—have a party. You invite everyone to your perfect building, but one of your guests is a storm. You invited Death to a dinner party. Of course, you fight. You made this. In the end, it’s just you and who you started with. Of course, it’s a cliché after all. What did you expect, you fool? What did you expect from your gods?

The building shakes. You see the corpses of all the youngsters who came to you and your people, trusting you. You mourn for your children, the human ones you found while building your metal behemoth. You’re in shock, you never thought it could be touched. But now the glass cracks. You run damage control so fiercely and so uneventfully they feel sorry for you. Death leaves to torment other worlds, sure it has broken you. It has, it has, it has. You beg your people: _Stay, please, we can still make a night out of this._ They don’t leave you.

Just like the building before you, you grow, taking inspiration from your project. It takes so much time, so much sacrifice, but you and your little community stay strong. You plant trees which grow thanks to the sunlight coming in through the slowly-cracking glass. You do all that is in your power to be happy, to make the others happy, and you don’t fail. Wait for some miracle that’ll return hope back to you. And one day you see that the roof is still there. Death couldn’t leave you without a home, defenceless. That is when you decide to fight.

You don’t wait for Death to come back. You seek it out, and when you do, you see that Death has lost his power. _I gave it to many someones_ , says the ghost, _I was severely drained by my lifetime_. One of your people kills the entity, and you can’t begrudge her that. She’d lost so much. You return to your building, and the glass is slowly repairing. Time passes, you still mourn, but you are fine. A little sad, but so are all your people. All that time, something keeps nagging at you like a fly in the room.

What is the missing piece of the puzzle, you think. We can’t be this fortunate. You find it out just as the first bombs light up the sky. Many someones, Death had said. Well, they came. They came for the building. You shouldn’t have ever started it. They’re all in danger, your people. But they stand back to back, and say, together, we’ll fight and win together. On this roof of what we built. On the ground we first walked on. On the bits and pieces of ourselves we have strewn along the way. And then the giant doors open.

The threat spills out, but with them, Death’s previous captors—the youngsters. Your youngsters. Your heart constricts. You see your people land, in armour, in magic, in music, in blood, in words, in strength, in defiance. They fight, against the threat and its minions, with the faceless drama of the newly powerful, against gravity. _Honey,_ you say to the woman you love, _baby. Do you still love me, now that I burn?_ But then you see the threat draw close and you never hear her answer. You fight and you see the building and your people beside you, and you—

It’s a pretty metaphor, stretched to make a nice story, he thinks, though he might have gone too far with the villain who can’t be defeated and is also Death. But he was freezing, forgive him for delirium. But that’s what the Avengers should’ve been—a people. They should’ve bonded over something except for destruction, should’ve done something with each other—made something grow. Should’ve known they could tell each other stuff, god damn it. Tears. God, he should’ve been told about his mother’s murderer, he’d thought, staring at the shield lying across the concrete bunker. So, about the decisions he’d made: he’s going to get closer to his family.

And the Parker kid, because the Parker kid’s interesting. He’s going to be his own self, scrap all the Avengers bullshit, it was a mistake anyway. He’s going to call Pepper, beg her, tell her he’s going to talk to her, that he knows that they needed a break, but he can’t deal with it. Can’t deal with the absence of her, that hurts worse than the hypothermia’s going to, he knows. He’s going to love her (always did, always does, always will), and she’s going to know it, nothing’s higher priority. Except for if she wants something else to be.

He’s going to update Rhodey’s braces to the point that they’ll be better than real legs, hell, they’ll be better than alien legs. Unless Rhodey wants normal legs (Rhodey won’t; he might seem all responsible, but Tony knows he’s a nerd), in which case he’ll relent. He’s going to go on more frequent cheeseburger drives with Happy, fuck his already fucked cholesterol, really. He’s going to invite Harley over to the labs, weaponize some confetti for Thanksgiving.

It’s going to be the life he was supposed to have, and he knows he’s going to die for it, because of it.

Tony knows the Cap team’s at Wakanda, he saw it in the way T’Challa was all kind and grimacing when he met Tony after that little Siberian jaunt. He doesn’t much care. As for Rogers’ letter, that’s straight in the bin—but the phone might be important, even if just for tracking later, which is the only use he can see for it. Tony Stark doesn’t call people. As for Ross, ugh. Tony’s going to get him demoted to a position where he isn’t allowed to display his ugly face on the workshop holograms any soon. Yeah, all this effort’s going to murder him. Too much work, to feel the weight of the world on your shoulders yet again (but when has it ever left him).

*******

“I’ve been carrying this thing around since 2008,” declares Happy. It’s the ring. Yeah, the one he made. Yeah, the one he never thought he’d give her because he never thought they’d move ahead of when they were ‘on a break.’ (Tony has since admitted that they aren’t like Ross and Rachel at all; both Peter and Harley had agreed.) Yeah, the shiny one.

Tony wishes for just a split second that Parker wasn’t such a noble little brat, because what if she—

And there she is, moving faster than he thought she would, lips pressed to his, and it’s a chaste kiss because they have a horde of reporters waiting just beyond the door and they cannot scandalize Happy, even if he is among their number one fans (he runs a fan account called ‘pepperony forever’ on Tumblr; it has awesome gifs), it would just be wrong. He feels her lips smile against his, happy, sweet, just the slightest bit wicked, and he wonders if he really wanted to fry his brain this way—goddamn electroshock would be less painful rather than this slow torture of knowing that he can’t keep kissing her. But now he is hers to kiss. Forever. That makes the pain a bit better.

They separate, she sighs softly (her hair’s open today, long and reddish-gold and lovely and curling at the ends) and goes through the door. She’s still grinning when she does so. Happy throws him the ring in a sparkling arc across the space between them, smiling so widely that Tony wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it. Tony catches it, caught in a shrug and beams down at it, at the diamond which still shines as bright as when he first saw it resting on black velvet in his workshop, waiting for a metal band. The platinum-titanium-gold alloy catches the light perfectly; it looks like he mixed champagne in silver.

“Come on, boss,” smiles Happy, and Tony pushes open the door, ring in his pocket, hand a fist around it (it digging into his palm is one of the most familiar feelings) and is momentarily blinded by the cameras. Pepper’s sitting at the table which has two chairs and she’s answering questions about something Stark-related, and he’s sure he’s looking at her with the dopiest smile ever on his face, and this is going to trend on Twitter, because he’s stopped walking just to stare at her.

Tony believes in magic now, because he’s seen it, and the fact that he doesn’t like it doesn’t mean he disdains its existence. Somehow, maybe because of magic (god darn it), she looks back just in time to see him frozen to the spot, and smirks at him. He can almost hear her challenge, all the various ones she’s issued over the years.

_‘You going to fix it?’_

_‘That night, when we danced, and you went to go get me a drink, and left me there?’_

_‘I kinda really wanted to continue where we left off, you know.’_

_‘12%?’_

_‘Why, because I fell two hundred feet?’_

_‘Will that be all, Mr. Stark?’_

“Will that be all, Mr. Stark?” She says into the mic in the present, and he comes to with a start, a hand on his heart, and walks the remaining length to her, and kneels, ring in the light (he didn’t mean to do it, it just kinda happened ~~no one’s ever getting to know about that~~ ). His voice, when he speaks, is perfectly audible (thank God for FRIDAY).

He knows she expected just a formal announcement, not a whole proposal, because she is Pepper and she assumed he’d want to go about things the easier way for once, and the look on her face is perfect—God, he loves surprising her. The press going absolutely fucking nuts in the background is just an added bonus. He thinks a few of them are actually crying (they’ll get exclusives, of course).

“That will be all, Ms. Potts.”

She’s tearing up, and so is he, and it’s an absolute mess, and there is clapping and full-on confetti and so many things Tony didn’t expect, and his phone’s going crazy in his pockets, and he’s sure the news has wrecked at least three social media platforms and YouTube, because the Stark Industries channel livestreams these things and quite a lot of people watch them, because their titles are always hilarious, for example, _Watch Stark CEO verbally flay 36 reporters, AGAIN_ ; _An entire room mourns the existence of Tony Stark; LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! JAMES RHODES IS WEARING AIR FORCE UNIFORM; Stop all you’re doing and watch Mr. Stark try to explain quantum physics to reporters who are now on suicide watch; Lord save this dude who is scared of Vision, at least Thor wasn’t red; Stark Head of Security offered a mountain of donuts to thief instead of billion-dollar tech, guess what happened; Where is The Hulk and the rest of Firefly? Mr. Stark asks the important questions to people who were supposed to be asking him unimportant questions before bursting into tears; James Rhodes talks about boring stuff, but just look at him, come on; Someone give Virginia Potts another island, she’s gorgeous; Stark Head of Security pitches idea for comic with hero called Nick “Eyepatch” Fury; King T’Challa and Mr. Stark are Very Awkward for 45 minutes straight_ (thank God for FRIDAY, the most Gen-Z AI to ever Gen-Z; the PR team love her to bits).

What would be the title of this one, he wonders absently as he watches her blush and whisper a yes that the whole room hears and goes crazier on hearing—honestly, Tony didn’t think it was possible—and he slides the ring onto her finger and it fits so well he’s surprised (but not really). He gets up, groans theatrically.

“Hard on the knees, that was,” he says into the mic, and they laugh, and he turns to look her in the eye, “but easy on the heart.”

As predicted, another great roar of approval. Tony hears a small, exasperated sigh from FRIDAY in his tiny earpiece. There’s a similar sigh from Pepper, but she looks so happy it outweighs it all.

“You idiot,” she says, and turns to the crowd. “Anthony Edward Stark and I are engaged to be married, as you just saw. Formal statement: I don’t quite know what to say, because I was just going to finish off today’s press conference early so that I could get back to him. There was supposed to be no huge proposal—thought he’d do it quietly for once. But even as I walked out on stage, I knew he was going to do something. The fool. This huge moment wasn’t planned. Neither was our relationship. Or Iron Man. Or him being a complete and utter dork who drinks too much coffee and sleeps in the foetal position whenever he does.” She picks a piece of confetti out of her hair.

“I have a reputation for being a control freak, honey,” she confesses, voice low. Everything’s quiet. He could hear a pin drop. He can hear his heartbeat. He can hear them all holding their breath. “But being with you taught me that I just might love the unexpected most of all.”

And he practically jumps to kiss her, fingers in her hair and it’s kinda not for an audience, but that? That whole thing? God damn it, he loves her so much.

“You win,” he gasps into the mic when they’re done, “I was trying to be romantic and all, but you win, Potts. I love you.”

“I know,” she says. Han Solo. God, they’re going to be publicly responsible for turning every single tweet for the next twenty years into an anguished keysmash.

“Questions?” He asks. Hands shoot up all over the room, but not as many as he expected.

“When’s the wedding, lovebirds?”

“Uh,” says Pepper, resting her chin on a fist, elbow propped up on the table, “this might be a long engagement, I’m sure Tony agrees with me, because none of our schedules are free for, I don’t know, almost more than a year now? I’m so sorry, but it’s gonna be some time before we start printing the cards. Stark PR will be in touch.”

“Are you going to give up Iron Man, Mr. Stark?”

“Uh,” answers Tony, squinting at the lights, “that’s a question. Damn. No. We took a break for a year or so because of it—and I tried to give it up. Remember the fiasco with the President, all those fireworks at Christmas that I revealed were suits? Yeah. I tried. So did Pep. But we were trying in the wrong direction. We were denying ourselves from things we really loved, so we took a break to see if we were that important to each other. I broke first, but I always do. She understood, and she came back, and we found out that the Suits were always going to be a part of me. Quoting myself from way back in 2011, ‘The Suit and I are one.’ And she knows that. Maybe she always did, but she hated the danger that came with it.”

“But Tony was always going to put himself in danger anyway, with or without Iron Man. So, if he’s helping people and possibly helping himself,” Pepper continues, and something deep in him sits easier than it did before, “I decided to let him do so. As long as he comes back to me in the end.”

“I always will,” Tony tells her, before someone can say anything else, “It’s always you.”

“Okay, you’re making us all cry,” chirps a reporter, “so is it forever, you guys?”

They look at each other, and Tony remembers so many things, so many years, the way she’d looked as he got off the plane from Afghanistan, her hair under the workshop lights, her putting his heart back in, the post-its, the way she didn’t believe she was CEO, everything, everything, her after the first time they kissed, her with flame in her veins, her mind, her eyes, putting the necklace of shrapnel around her neck. It’s always been forever to him. It has always been so decided that he loves her—his last thought will probably be about her. The love he feels for her will kill him one day.

“Yes,” they both say together.

(FRIDAY names the video _Took Mom and Dad EIGHT YEARS. You, non-stupid viewer, can get PROPER HEALTH INSURANCE in that long._ ) 

*******

“Kid, god damn it, you’re going to be the death of me.”

Even as Tony’s saying it, he knows it’s true. He doesn’t know why or how he does. He never has known how he knows what things will lead to his eventual demise. Not when he first thought it when he was three or four, not when he last thought it at that press conference. He’s never gone searching, best not to search for answers you don’t need. Best not to search for answers you know you won’t find. Best to be here, in the present, with this kid who just almost got himself killed a couple of weeks ago (Tony regrets taking the Spider Suit away from him when he’d done so, because then he wouldn’t have had to lift up a building by himself, but what’s done is done).

“—figure out the tensile strength, and the fabrication units are just fine! Aren’t they, DUM-E? Come on, Mr. Stark, don’t you trust this little robot face?”

“DUM-E is not a puppy, Parker. And he’s hated the fabrication units ever since I set them up. Thinks they’re competition. They really aren’t, DUM-E can’t do a thing—they win just by existing. I’ll trust you if you can get You to agree with that statement.”

Peter pouts. He does that a lot for a ‘grown-up’ teen, and Tony is never not charmed by it. He’s weak, okay?

“You always runs away to you, Mr. Stark.”

“Which is why I trust her, try to keep up, arachnid.”

The kid sucks in a breath, mock-petulant, his hands covered in web fluid. Quite honestly, Tony thinks the fluid should be red or blue, something that doesn’t look so much like shitty glue. Superheroes…they have to be careful about presentation, too. But if any journo comes after this kid saying he’s not a good hero/role model/friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, heads will roll.

Tony has next to no idea why he’s so damn protective about this one. Maybe it’s because Harley has always exuded a palpable ‘don’t-fuck-with-me’ air, and Peter looks like a human pup. Seriously. Harley would be so much more badass in a leather jacket (one of the things superheroes are judged on, he guesses, Fury has _such_ a leather fetish), though Tony prefers all of his kids in bubble wrap. Even DUM-E. Especially DUM-E.

“Mr. St-a-ark,” he whines, and Tony sighs. Harley and this one should never meet. Between Harley’s eyes and Parker’s voice, they’d bankrupt him in seconds.

“Butterfingers, do the clean-up with You,” Tony orders the bots, smiling as DUM-E droops and backs away into a charging station for a bot sulk, “Fine. What do you wanna do, genius? I’m free.”

(He isn’t.)

Peter’s face lights up and Tony remembers an apartment in Queens (‘ _I have homework._ ’) and bad baked goodies. May still doesn’t like him, he knows. She called up once, pretty late at night for a normal person, and it was all low threat and _I swear, if you hurt him you won’t know what to do with your existence and isn’t that what you’re most scared of_. They’re running on a mutual information dump thing now—they both send each other alerts as to where the spider is at all times. Tony thinks this is excessive sometimes, Pepper endorses it.

“There’s a message from Ned on the phone, Pete,” announces FRIDAY. She’s way more casual with him than Tony is, fly-away terms of endearment common for them. It’s like a big sister-little brother relationship; Tony both minds and doesn’t. It’s cute, he guesses, but Peter still won’t call him Tony. He’s okay with being called Mr. Stark, god knows that’s a common enough thing people call him. It’s only been…what, 6 months or so since Germany, but he expected it to be less formal. And yeah, the kid’s a gigantic nerd and very, very trusting, it’s just that Tony hoped for a nickname at this point in time. It doesn’t worry him—he knows Peter has had problems with the authority figures in his life, and he doesn’t want to impose. He couldn’t possibly.

“Yeah, thanks, FRI, I’ll deal,” replies Peter, reaching for the phone halfway across the room with a web. It springs back to him and almost hits him smack in the face. “Hey, that was faster than I thought it would go!”

“Better, more flexible materials,” Tony mumbles, doing a cursory check on a boot repulsor, “Make all the difference everywhere. Are you putting all your little observations in a notebook? Because I have told you, it isn’t an experiment—”

“Unless it’s written down, I know. That’s an amazing tip, but sometimes it gets slightly inconvenient.” The look on Tony’s face must be eloquent, because he hastily adds, “All the best tips do!”

“You’re a disaster,” Tony tells him, ruffling said disaster’s hair as he finally gets up off the workshop bench he’s been sitting at since forever. “And I don’t think I need to remind you: get back to May at dinner-time, no late goddamn patrols, we have the police for a reason, Spider-Man. Your aunt worries about you like you wouldn’t believe. So, any questions for today, questions that aren’t about science?” He thinks for a second. “Quite honestly, I’ll accept questions about science, too.”

“I’ll be fine, Mr. Stark,” Parker starts, and Tony coughs.

“Uh, I don’t remember caring about you enough to warrant that,” he lies smoothly.

Peter Parker gives him a crooked, amused smile. Damn perceptive teens, damn them all to hell, the unnatural species.

“Not believing that for a single second, but here’s your question. It may be science related, maybe not.”

“Listening, kiddo.”

“What do you do, hypothetically, obviously, if you like a girl? And she’s nice, and pretty and knows things about life that you wouldn’t in a billion years and disregards everything and looks like she’d be anywhere but with you but also like she’s really listening to you at the same time and like she knows the answer to everything but won’t tell you just to be interesting.” He pauses, and something in Tony _aches_ so desperately. “She’s so out of your league, but not in that crazy cheerleader way. She’d not be out of your league if you were just the tiniest bit better, but you aren’t. So, what do you do if you like that girl?”

The girl sounds a lot like Pepper, if Tony thinks about it. But Tony and Pepper’s whole courting thing was a train wreck of the most epic order, so he says, “You don’t do anything I did. I mean, anything. You just go be you, kid. I’ve known so many people, and trust me on this, you’re one of the good eggs. You’re the best version of yourself. Even if you feel you could be better, no one would change you for the world. You just go be honest, go be you. I know it sounds clichéd, but that type of girl sees through shit. And she doesn’t like lies. Oh, and did you try the easiest way?”

He leans forward, like he’s dispensing a huge and marvellous secret.

“You talk to her.”

Peter Parker throws papers at him, going for disgruntled but grinning very wide.

“Hate you, Mr. Stark.”

“Vicious,” he gasps, hand on his heart like he’s been shot, “why must you harm me so?”

The kid laughs and begins to pack his stuff up.

“I really wish Doctor Banner were here,” he says, off-hand, and Tony doesn’t know what to say.

“He’ll like you, spider-boy,” Tony tells him, “You both play in the same-ish ballpark.”

“And he would’ve given better advice,” sighs Peter, the betrayer, “how I wish he were here.”

“Hey!” Tony protests, offended, “That was amazing advice. If you asked Bruce that, it would be all awkward nerd stammering, believe me.”

“I have a PhD in awkward nerd stammering,” Peter says proudly.

“He has seven, he’s very proud of them,” Tony grins.

“Ugh,” groans Peter, flopping down on the couch. It’s a very old couch. Tony has it sterilized every two months, but he can’t seem to incinerate it yet. Oh, the woes of being a sentimental billionaire.

“Just that, buttercup? You got anything else worrying you?”

Tony keeps his voice light to hide the fact that he’d probably run into hellfire to solve the kid’s problems. With Harley, it had taken a bit of time—because Harley was skittish even at a young age, and he had to be reassured about the fact that Tony actually cared (sometimes he still does, and Tony hates those days, those desperate phone calls, wishing he could be with his little mechanic kid). Peter is way more secure in the affection given to him, which is a goddamn miracle given all the shit that has happened to him over the years.

It’s super endearing, his casual trust, the way he’s doubtful about every goddamn thing under the sun but never the fact that he’s loved and will be missed. It also makes Tony worry quite a lot. Tony worries about them both—little scrappy genii, both survivors, but so different he almost can’t wrap his head around it. Tony sometimes kinda wishes they were robots, so that he could check on them always without it being creepy.

Ugh, why did he have to go get all attached?

“No, Mr. Stark, I think I’m fine these days, really. Ned and I are rebuilding the Death Star all over again,” he rambles, and Tony wants to take him for a goddamn haircut because that hair is just too messy and May agrees with him, “and there’s always Decathlon, though they’re holding off the major events because of Washington.”

“Do you want them to have major events?” Tony asks. He hopes the kid gets it, it’s a veiled inquiry: even if you shouldn’t, do you feel in any way guilty? “Because if you do, kid, I’ll be happy to get something set the hell up.”

“I guess they all do need a break,” Peter muses, pulling out his Suit from a bag, “But I’ll call you if Ned gets bored.”

Tony smiles. A veiled response: _Thanks, but I’ll deal_.

“Honey, any assistance with your Suit?” FRIDAY asks, and Tony makes a face at the blatant favouritism.

“Hey, you once let me strip off the Iron Man armour off me with my own hands. That’s metal armour, FRI, it hurts in the squishy parts,” he complains, knowing he won’t win. FRIDAY, classy lady that she is, just extends a metal arm made for that purpose and snatches the Spider Suit from Peter, making him stand on the armour stand. The Suit hits Tony as it goes, because FRIDAY is a paragon of elegance. The Suit seams to the boy easily, and he watches for any signs of discomfort or injury. None. _Yet._

“I do wish you didn’t go to patrol every damn night, Pete,” he says, knowing he sounds like a whiny mom and not being able to help it.

“Even if there aren’t any criminals, Mr. Stark, I like doing it. It’s a reminder to the people that there shouldn’t be, an assurance that there won’t be. And sometimes I help a kid with her homework. It’s a routine. Keeps me grounded. Keeps me hungry, so I can appreciate food later.”

 _Keeps me hurting_ , Tony hears.

“Okay,” he breathes out into the lab, the mask being pulled over Peter’s face, and the white eyes of the suit sometimes remind him of Deadpool’s. He both knows and doesn’t know where that mercenary is, and it’s fine. A nice arrangement for the both of them, mutual even though they haven’t talked in years, probably never will again.

Peter throws on a t-shirt over the suit. He does that very rarely, for photo ops and the like, but it’s always funny. The lurid, almost offensively orange t-shirt says: I ♥ TS. In cursive.

Tony howls with mirth, pressing his hands to his face briefly before looking up at the menace. On the back of the t-shirt, there’s even a tiny Iron Man doodle. The doodle is wearing headphones and hugging a heart. There are a lot of hearts on the thing.

“Both Hiddleston and Swift will sue me now, just out of spite. And you know what? I’ll pay whatever. I’ll pay the fees for Taylor’s latest holiday to acquire another boy and another few Grammys for the album she makes about that boy. This is amazing. A-ma-zing. This will trend big time. You’re a genius, boyo.”

“I didn’t think you would like it this much. Oh, and have you noticed, Tom Hiddleston kinda looks like Loki,” says Peter, breathless with laughter himself.

“Oh My God you have derailed my entire life, you maniac,” Tony replies, “but yeah, I see the resemblance now. Wow. So, Tay-Tay does like bad guys. Honestly, wouldn’t blame her.”

“Yeah, you and 75% of the internet doesn’t blame her. Loki has too many fangirls, I mean it, seriously. I’ve heard people say they like his aesthetic.”

“Gold, green and murdery does tend to make a good Pinterest board,” Tony grins.

“Bye, Mr. Stark! Thanks for the lab!” The kid says, jumping to touch the ceiling on his way out just for the heck of it.

“No problem,” Tony replies, “and remember to show that shirt off!”

That kid’s going to be the death of him.

*******

The Only Thing, Tony thinks (the first letter of every word capital, times new roman, that feeling that you get in your eyes, in your throat when you stay up for too long) that is keeping him from driving this car right off the cliff is the fact that he’ll meet everyone soon. Again, again.

“T’Challa,” he says as FRI connects him to the king of Wakanda, “What the absolute fuck, you imbecile.”

“My mother told me to do it,” replies the king, his accent precise, tone languid—the sovereign is a living prediction, and it annoys him to no end.

“Yeah, and she’s damn scary, also the best queen I’ve ever heard of, don’t let anyone tell you any differently. But seriously, buying buildings in Cali when you could’ve just called me? Are we friends or not, kitty cat. Do I have any delusion about our profound and platonic bond.”

Tony doesn’t know why all of his question marks turn to full-stops these days. Statements instead of doubts.

“I feel friend-zoned,” groans T’Challa theatrically, and Tony smirks. It’s always a pleasure when he stops being so law-abiding.

“Yeah, should’ve declared your country as not-so-third-world and come to some of those galas for rich, important kids we used to have back when I was still young and unfettered. I’m sorry, but she liked it and put a ring on it.”

“As she should’ve,” returns the monarch, magnanimous, “Wakanda just didn’t want to issue a public statement of alliance so soon—if I would’ve called Tony Stark for his help with buying property, it would’ve been seen as just that. I’m sure you understand.”

“Could’ve rigged up something illegal,” Tony says flippantly, and T’Challa makes a disapproving noise.

“What did I tell you about the US Constitution and the general idea of law, Iron Man?”

“That it is faulty and fake, but it still exists and I should adhere to it,” Tony groans, “Yes, I know, Mom. I’m proud of you guys. I mean, always knew you were hiding something, because even shadow tech is detectible, no matter how amazingly awesome it is. I’m happy you felt—free—enough to tell the world.”

“Thank you, we felt it our duty, a duty to two lost little boys watching their father’s blood soak a carpet. Two fathers, dead because of the idea of a country and the idea of what peace should be. My cousin and I were the same when we began our quest for vengeance, and the same when we realized it was hopeless. Maybe a little desperate there at the end, but who isn’t,” T’Challa tells him, and Tony likes stories, likes them desperately, on many days they have been his only saving grace, which is why he tolerates them now, even though they make him ache, “Why didn’t you pry into the technology, then?”

“JARVIS,” answers Tony and there is a long, pained silence, “I’m changing the subject. Your country is full of genius, and I wish I could visit, but I know it’s all a major upheaval right now, and the Dora give off the vibe that they would stake men like me or eat them for breakfast.”

“Shuri sends you her condolences, as do I,” says T’Challa, a weird gravity to his voice that Tony guesses is the voice of one who has loved and lost, and oh, he thinks, with a slight shock: the Panther has lost his father, too. Tony has a lump in his throat and the view on the road is pretty amazing.

“Tell Shuri that she’s pretty awesome, and that’s the biggest compliment I give people, and that she probably doesn’t need compliments, but it would be nice if she accepted them anyway.”

“She says thanks for recognizing that she is an independent woman who don’t need no compliments,” T’Challa says the words like he’s reading off of something, and sure enough, his suspicions are confirmed when the king asks, “What does that mean? I know my sister communicates extensively through the medium of internet references and inside jokes.”

“Ah, just pop culture, our heavenly king, runs my world, I’m nothing without it,” Tony replies with a grin, even though pretty much no one can see it. It feels nice to smile, sometimes.

“Shuri says ‘mood’ to your reply, Stark. I will never understand children.”

“Hey, I’m older than you! It doesn’t look it, sure, but I am.”

“Yes, yes, we all lust for your elixir of ever-lasting strength, genius and beauty,” T’Challa snarks back.

“Yeah, the Cap serum’s just a cheap imitation.”

Seriously, awkward and meaningful silences are becoming a Thing on this call. Whenever he talks to the Wakandan ruler, actually. The thing is, T’Challa is kinda like the best version of a scientifically unintelligent Tony would’ve been in an alternate universe. And the best version of a scientifically unintelligent Tony is better than any Tony who has a goddamn working mind. Looking at T’Challa doing everything right all the time is just a puzzle he can’t solve. How can one person be burdened with so many expectations and not let any of them down?

“Stark—”

“I know, all right. No spies, no drones, hell, I knew the second I saw you after Siberia. Why are you trying to hide it from _me_ , of all people? Secrets were what started that whole fiasco. Thank your stars, man, that I’m so tired these days.”

“You are not done with resentment.” T’Challa states it like bald fact. Maybe it is. Maybe he’s just that predictable.

“No,” Tony answers simply, “but I’m just done. Wiped of it all, even though it still twists.”

“Barnes is in cryo,” the king tells Tony, and he imagines him staring up to the high ceiling in the palace, “I don’t know where Rogers is.”

“If you ever need to,” Tony sighs, “If it ever gets out of hand, your house of cards, you call me, because I respect you, and I’ll help you. You call me, if only to tell me it’s all falling, even if you know I was the one who told you about the threat in the first place. I deserve that warning, at least, when all your aces turn to dust and your new heroes leave, because we needed a goddamn suit of armour around the world. One last formality before Armageddon, for old times’ sake.”

He doesn’t know who he’s talking to—the ghost of what the Avengers were and could’ve been, or the new-age leader who has just emerged. He’s not sure why he’s saying all this. He knows what he’s saying is right. He knows that Ultron was a fuck-up of catastrophic proportions, but he also knows that even if it went perfectly, it couldn’t have solved every single problem, ever. The suit of armour he was talking about was a proper team. The Initiative as it was conceived (Danvers smiling on a plane, aviators gleaming, and Tony wonders if Fury saw her as someone to care for), the shining ideal. Ultron was just an idea born out of desperation that he completed too fast. The perils of being a tortured genius. The same nightmare, over and over again in his head for the last five years.

Now, Tony’s so worn out all he can do is appeal to the new kid on the block.

“You should’ve gotten many things,” says T’Challa, “but the world is unfair.”

“And who knows it better than I?” Tony asks, before he cuts the call.

_Who knows it better than I?_

“FRI, update,” he says.

“Magical activity detected at Bleecker Street again last night, minimal malevolence level, and fast tamped down by what Mr. Odinson referred to as ‘Midgard’s Magic.’ He said it’s non-harmful, and protective, but that is outdated knowledge from around three years ago. Want to check it out?”

“I doubt magic has updates like your servers, sweetheart. No magical knowledge is outdated,” he tells her, definitely a bit rougher with the steering wheel than he should be, “magic is.”

“I rather like it,” she muses, “the building’s called the Sanctum Sanctorum.”

“Nope, we’re okay,” he says, glib and he knows it, writing off a threat maybe, but if the magicians have got it covered, who is he to interfere? Thor had always told him to never disrespect the magicians, and he had prior experience from Loki, so Tony follows his instructions. _Don’t meddle in magic, unless you understand it. Power means nothing, not in those fights._ He misses Thor and his solemn lectures, and his booming laugh, and the way you didn’t feel alone when he was there. Thor is…a rare thing. A rare god. He supposes he should be happy they ever met at all. “How’s Rhodes?” He says finally.

“His flight’s circling, boss. You gotta be fast now.”

“When am I not?” And he’s grinning, flying with his feet on the ground, as if he’s thirty all over again, and isn’t that depressing, being nostalgic for the age of thirty? Isn’t that just so him, wishing for things no one sane would wish for, wanting things when he’s drowning in them? Isn’t his life a giant bloody rhetorical question?

“If you go above the speed limit, I’ll look the other way,” his AI tells him smoothly, and God, she and JARV would’ve loved each other. They would’ve had friendly competitions; she would’ve encouraged the bots misbehaving, it would’ve been like JARVIS herding mechanical, sentient sheep, one madman in a lab and it would’ve been so happy. It could’ve been different. But then, Tony has regretted every single decision he’s ever made in his long, long life.

Even loving the people he loves is regretted, because they deserve better. But he’s been through enough. Let him be selfish. Let him have this. And he begs, and he begs, and he begs the wind stinging his eyes. Let them be alive, when it’s all over, when fire falls from the sky and the voices in Tony’s head take shape and form to terrorize him further.

When I die, let them be okay. It’s not a big thing to ask, really. It’s really shitty, listening to them make plans when he knows all the things that’ll mark his end.

One question, though, just one: When he dies, will he still be painted as a good-for-nothing adrenaline junkie, too much money, not enough respect?

It’s not because he cares, it’s because they will. Tony has done and will do so many things that will defy public opinion, but they won’t like him being badmouthed when he’s gone. Death makes saints of us all, he thinks, a wry twist to his mouth, Howard Stark on his mind. Will it give him that mercy too?

The gates open for him pretty much instantaneously, and he speeds to the tarmac, looking at the Stark company jet landing. And he drives straight in its path, hears the plane hit the ground, and waits. One second, one second, one second, two. When it’s dangerously close, feeling the air forming a tight vortex behind him, he steps on the accelerator, and drives for his life, whooping hysterically.

James Bond, eat your little Brit heart out.

He slams the car off the runway when the plane gets too close, a sharp jerk throwing him out of alignment, and it’s _wonderful_. Hell, he’s a maniac, but he knows he won’t die this way. He’s too good at cars for that. And too good at planes. He hears Rhodey jogging up to him, barely worried, because he does this whenever he has to pick someone up at an airport. It’s like a tradition (a habit actually), a warm welcome. 

“Gotten off for the day?” He asks pleasantly and holds an arm out. Tony takes it. “Car’s not very wrecked, a bit scratched, though—good, but you drove off faster today. I’d say you panicked.”

“Got a lot of things on my mind, honeybuns,” Tony replies, “You wanna drive? I know you like this one.”

“Never said no to driving one of your machines,” Rhodey says, and they grin at each other, both crazy, even if Rhodes looks better adjusted. _You’re a bad influence, you heroes,_ he remembers Pepper telling both of them, amused and flushed with drink. Maybe this is what’s going to kill him, the adrenaline of having something powerful in his hands (his own life, the Suit, the media, the government, metal and fire and blood). Probably, probably. He’s going to die when he meets his match. And oh, he cannot wait for it, the last rush, the last hit. The last feeling of the wind in his hair and a comment on his lips, feeling his skin for the final time.

Who says he’s suicidal? It’s just gone on too long, this mortal farce.

*******

Harley and he are at a diner.

Why do Harley and he end up in these unfortunate situations? Why only them? Is their entire long, long relationship to be tainted by embarrassment? Harley finishes his soda and the air at the end of the glass makes that rattling sound. There are a lot of ice cubes in that glass left. Half of that soda was ice cubes.

Why does Tony pay for soda that is not soda but ice cubes?

“Billionaire, remember,” drawls Harley, nudging at all the ice cubes with his straw. The straw is bio-degradable cardboard. Tony wistfully remembers one of Bruce’s very emphatic, slightly hungover lectures on plastic straws when he and Tony once went to a Wendy’s. Yeah, those were the good days. They were such hot studs, back then. Tony doesn’t think he voiced his irritation about the ice cubes out loud. Can Harley read goddamn minds? It would be just like that jerk to not tell Tony he became Professor X. In a moment of rare co-ordination, they sigh. He watches Harley tilt the glass and throw all of the ice cubes into his mouth in stunned, mildly impressed, highly concerned silence.

Harley is making obnoxious crunching sounds that happen when you eat ice cubes like _a complete lunatic_ when Tony asks him, “Can you or can you not read minds?”

“Dude—”

“No. ‘Dude’ has never been and will never be a thing. Especially not a thing you call me, kiddo. Try again.”

Harley just gives him an unimpressed, withering look. He’s probably learnt that from Pepper.

“Dude,” he starts pointedly, and Tony gives up, like, Lindsay Lohan level gives up, “if I could do that, I could get to know why these very nice guys with very nice guns are holding my food hostage. Oh, and you by extension too, I suppose.”

“Why do you not care about me?” Tony whines, making origami.

“Dude,” says Harley, and if the kidnappers (?) won’t kill him, Tony will, soon, “I don’t care what the internet says these days, but you are not a snack. You are not hot, piping gorgeousness.”

Tony waits for the punch line.

“You are not my waffles,” Harley tells him, patting his shoulder comfortingly in an effort to cushion the blow.

“I hate you,” Tony says conversationally. Harley’s smile back at Tony is all teeth, and a silent message: _Where in the absolute fuck is help?_ To any observer, they just look like they’re making conversation, casual banter. But to them? These are signals. Harley being too fidgety (that’s more a Peter thing) with his straw—not normal, it’s another gesture that means, _go on, start it, say something stupid, you’re the hero here, take the lead_. Harley eating those ice cubes? All him, the demon, but making that rattling sound after draining his glass? A warning: a _we gotta distract, play the game_.

Tony calling Harley kiddo: _you’re good, we’ll get out of here, have you pressed the button on your phone that alerts Rhodey and hence everyone else in the forces?_ Tony making paper cranes: _I wish, I wish, I wish we’re not stuck_.

Harley saying ‘Dude’ again was a three-fold thing. It annoyed Tony, said: _do you think I’m stupid, of course I did, I knew something was wrong just as much as you did_ , and literally everyone knows that ‘Dude,’ if and when said properly, has a thousand meanings. The shoulder pat? It was three times Harley patted him, another non-verbal conversation: _Three more just entered_.

Tony folds the head of the crane down. _Any of them look important?_

Harley stops his impatient tapping of the table for a few tense seconds, then resumes. _No, don’t think so._ Tony tries to glean meaning from the too-loose-so-automatically-too-tense set of his kid’s shoulders, the way he blinks or breathes, but can’t. God. What if all that is something important Harley’s trying to tell him, that he’s missing? Tony remembers a conversation with another tense teenager, on the top of a skyscraper, stepping out of the Suit, nerves frayed to rawness, his mind chafing at him— _And if you die, I feel like that’s on me_.

He’s not thinking about it. He’s not thinking about ~~Harley~~ anyone dying. Come on, if they die here, because of these common, dumbass amateurs, Tony will voluntarily bury himself in lava pools, whatever Hell can offer. He’d deserve it.

“I don’t care,” groans Harley dramatically and suddenly, stretching, “my soda’s over and I just don’t care. You have made me emotionless, Iron Man.”

Real message: _I don’t care. My soda’s over; let’s blow this joint_.

Tony sighs. _Fine, brat, but that was restful. You know Rhodey’s gonna be pissed when he finds out this was a cry for attention, an overreaction._

Harley shrugs eloquently. _I pressed the panic button. I’m a kid. He won’t say anything to me. You, on the other hand…_

“My pleasure,” Tony announces to the room. “Gentlemen, this has been most enlightening and comfortably appetizing, but the kid has a prom, or something depicted as life changing by popular media like that to get to, okay? So, we’re out of here.”

Two Suits burst in, just on cue, and he swears FRIDAY was waiting for the most theatrical reveal, because they never take so much time to arrive. He narrows his eyes at the armour which is wrapping around him, watching the HUD light up even as he swings into action because ooh, people are firing at them.

“FRI, quick, heavily modify Harley’s voice and appearance in the camera footage. Same as that voice filter he uses in the suit. Scramble it all.”

“Already done, boss,” FRI answers, the adorable little ball of coding.

“Don’t worry, we’ll leave you a review on Yelp!” Harley is telling the gun guys, his voice distorted, deep and kinda echoey through the filter, “A little light on the ice cubes would’ve been appreciated, though.” He knocks out a thug with a repulsor blast. “People pay for the soda, and not everyone is a billionaire, so please just give them the frigging soda!”

Oh, Harley is upset, he’s rambling. At this rate, they’re going to call him The Soda Saviour, The Vanquisher of Vile Ice, The Carbonated Champion, Iron Soda.

Tony looks at the time. Hell, his mother must be panicking—so must everyone else. Tony hopes this doesn’t make it to news.

“Don’t say anything when we get out,” he tells Harley on the suit’s private comms. The kid knows the rules—it’s just.

Tony wants to keep him safe with an intensity that he doesn’t really understand.

“I know, I know, this is an empty suit,” he answers, and another goon goes down, hit in the head. Tony’s aiming for the head as well, amnesia would be appreciated, at least foggy memory, that’s what they do if the bad guys manage to see Harley suiting up, because if they remember they know he’s important to Tony. Tony doesn’t kill them painfully only because the kid’s mom is probably catatonic with stress and also his aforementioned protective instinct that rears its ugly head whenever Tony looks at small people, or bots and stuff that he likes.

The only deaths Harley should be seeing up close are the ones on the television. And that too, only the deaths he’s okay with, watching a favourite character die can mess up kids (and adults, seriously) in a way that is not to be overlooked or trivialized, damn the shock factor, Hollywood.

George RR Martin, he thinks sourly. You come into my house; you get my _feelings_ involved; you kill Ned Stark—How dare you kill off the one (1) amazing, caring Stark father I’ve ever heard of? (Seven books in, and he’s still not over it.)

“Let’s get out of here,” Tony says. They burst through the doors into a very, very empty stretch of concrete. A bird looks sort of spooked. Tony frowns at it.

There is _no one_ there.

“But I pressed the panic button?” Harley offers. Tony shrugs uncertainly.

“Any way you maybe didn’t?”

“No, I did, it was very agreed that we wanted everyone here.” He sounds confused. “Tell me I didn’t have to suffer through that ice cube mush to get this.”

“It was hardly mush,” Tony points out.

“You are absolutely useless,” Harley tells him, “Should I call the cops, help to their anonymous line?”

“Tell FRI to do it, you calling the cops will just be another circus you don’t wanna deal with. Oh god, Pepper’s going to kill us.”

“You, gonna kill you,” Harley corrects, “I’m adorable.”

“I’m not?” Tony asks, concerned.

“Eh, you have a certain appeal to some demographics, but I think we can all agree that I’m the adorable one here.”

“I’m shorter than you, you know,” Tony muses.

“And you say it like it’s a good thing.”

“Ladies, ladies,” interrupts a voice which is definitely Happy Hogan, “you’re _both_ pretty.”

“Where is everyone?” Harley inquires imperiously, diva incarnate. (Yeah, he’s the adorable one.)

“Um, Ms. Keener told us that it was probably you guys hungry for attention, so, Rhodey asked FRI to send him the diner’s cam footage. He didn’t think you needed his help. I came to see you guys and your shocked expressions as I tell you this. It’s very rewarding so far.”

“Oh my God, you are Satan,” Tony says flatly, “How dare you, this was the one thing I was looking forward to—an attempted kidnapping getting honeybear all flustered and anxious.”

“Yeah!” Harley seconds aggressively.

They both have their faceplates up because there is no one except Hap in sight and if there were FRI would tell them. Harley is going all out with the hand gestures, his hair flopping untidily, dark golden brown against the armour’s gold. He needs a haircut. Every single teenage boy Tony has ever known needs a haircut, and Tony is just going to stop superheroing and open a goddamn hair salon. Hair spa. Maybe DUM-E can help. Who knows, maybe his calling has always been to cut bad hair. Tony wouldn’t be surprised. 

“There is no paparazzi. Two Iron Man Suits, and no camera crews. What has the world come to, seriously. What are they doing with their miserable lives? What are we doing?”

“Standing around in metal cans, being narcissistic,” Harley answers, smiling.

“I don’t think you want them here, boss,” Happy grins, and turns his back on them, striding to the car, “you’ve gone and gotten soft!”

“Hey, that is an unfair and unwarranted accusation, and it must be reported that I protest,” Tony shouts across the lot, shucking off the Suit and nodding at Harley who gestures that he wants to fly (he wishes they could fly together—but two Suits; too risky), picking it up when it folds neatly into a briefcase. FRIDAY pushes out a compartment, and Tony opens it to find his aviators. Bronze.

“Thanks, FRI,” he tells her, because the sun is really an assault, “Tell Harley to not worry about becoming Icarus.”

“He says that you sure as hell ain’t Daedalus, because he’s the one who built his armour. Also, he’s not that foolish.”

“Tetchy, aren’t we, FRI?”

“How would you survive without a bit of verbal sparring, boss?” She asks him. Point to her.

“I’ll miss you when I’m gone.”

The thing is—you can say these things to your AIs because they know. They understand, somehow. JARV would’ve said something about not being so morbid, because he was modelled on human Edwin Jarvis. FRI doesn’t say anything because sometimes she’s still trying to figure mortality out. Tony relates to that, but not why she does.

Tony’s always known he was going to die, but she won’t, which is why they’re both so confused, having to assuage each other’s doubts, which are, for all accounts and purposes, the opposite of each other (they’re geniuses, aren’t they). That’s their bonding. He puts the case in the backseat and sits across the gearshift, comfortable in the familiarity of being in a car with Happy.

“You’ve always liked danger,” Happy says easily, the car in motion now, Harley a shining figure in the blue, blue sky, “Met you getting beaten up by guys you instigated for that very reason, you stupid ass.”

“Adrenaline’s an okay drug,” Tony replies and Happy smiles wryly, a non-verbal _I know_ , and turns on the music. Tony hopes it’s something good, really, because music is going steadily, steadily downhill, and he’s a billionaire, but if he buys all the record companies, they’ll accuse him of monopolizing the market and all that free market bullshit. This, in particular, is a really bad year for music.

The opening strains of Radio Ga hit Tony’s ears, and he relaxes. They both do.

“I was expecting something inhuman,” Happy says over _we hardly need to use our ears_ , “crazy robot music. Cardio B or whoever’s famous. But seems like FRI is in a Queen mood today.”

Tony laughs. “Shh, here’s the good part.”

Tony claps along ( _all we hear is Radio Ga Ga—_ clap clap— _Radio Ga Ga_ ) to the beat of the song and he really likes good songs and good cars and good people and the wind through his hair. He now knows he’s not going to get at least three of those things as he takes his dying breaths. The audacity. His senses are a cursor on a word document, blink, blink, blink. Maybe he’ll die because of this field of white he can sometimes visualize behind his eyeballs. Maybe when he dies, the white will be filled with reasons why he should’ve lived.

But for now—blink, blink, blink.

*******

“Science.”

Pepper huffs half-heartedly.

“Pep, I can make us an algorithm for this. A pretty little program. Think about it, we can even make it available to the people. Do you have any idea how many people I’ll save from the wedding gauntlet if you let me do this?”

Pepper scoffs, lengthening her strides. They’re walking at a park they visit often. They even have matching sporty sweat suits. They aren’t troubled much because people have grown pretty used to them here and respect their privacy. This is the most human they’re ever seen: tiny arguments, PDA, bad hairstyles and all. He guesses they leave them alone for that very reason. People give them their best wishes and all, though, it’s been quite some time since the engagement announcement, and it’s known that they’re starting wedding prep.

“Pepper—” He draws her name out, whiny, childish, and there it is, the flash of a grin on her face. He has to jog to catch up, because she’s tall and motivated. Like this, they can just be literally any couple—as normal as they can be (he’s literally asking her to consider FRI being their wedding planner, so it’s their normal), just walking and clashing on the subject of a wedding. Like other couples do. Cute.

“I know your program’s going to do an admirable job, Mr. Stark, and be more productive, polite and helpful than you have ever been, but this whole wedding thing is for a cause, right,” she says, barely out of breath, and ugh, stamina, screw it in these boring places, “This is a stress test. A challenge of sorts, if you will. I think we’ll do very well, considering our history, and I really want to see you in a lace dress.”

“You know I’ll do it,” he warns, and she just laughs, because she knows him, has calculated all his replies.

“It’ll be great for PR; we’ll go all out. Heels?”

“Screw you, Ms. Potts, absolutely not.” She smiles at him, finally. “Ugh, fine, I’ll do it. All of it. Can we go cake sampling first, though?”

“Nope, cake sampling is with the kids—Harley is scheduled to arrive in two days, and FRI and I talked to May; Peter and Ned are very excited, so after two days. When Rhodey arrives, you and Hap and he are going suit shopping with the teens. We have fabric tomorrow.”

He groans.

“Isn’t this too early? We don’t even have a date.”

“Well,” Pepper sighs, “Considering your day job, Mr. Stark, I thought it was best to be prepared. We may need to have the wedding whenever, good thing we have a small guest list.”

Message received. _You can die whenever, Tony, so forgive me if I want to be ready—for the best and the worst_. He hates these little reminders from people he loves.

“What about the flowers? I was looking forward to those, ma’am.”

“Me, you, a dinner date, while the kids have a pizza party with their friends.” She pauses. “God, we sound like parents.”

“I know,” Tony replies, “but isn’t it awesome? So responsible of us.”

She kisses him softly. “I love you.”

There’s something stuck in his throat. He smiles at her. “I love you too, honey.”

Yeah, he knows anyone else would’ve been spooked by this—by naming themselves _parents_ of kids that really aren’t theirs. He knows that people are sometimes terse and nervous and think that this is a big thing. This was probably a big thing. But Tony and Pepper, by the sheer virtue of being Tony and Pepper, have had too many big things in their lives.

Have had too many almost-dead, hospital bed moments to still be surprised by these casual admissions— _I like you sounding like a mother, I like it, and I don’t care what huge thing that might mean_. He knows then that they’ll be okay. No freak-outs. No cold feet. No jumping out of a church window, messing up a perfectly nice suit on the way. No empty altar. I’m in it for the long haul, he thinks.

And she knows. That, in itself, is perfect, the way she just seems to know, because Tony’s mind runs too fast ~~all the time~~ sometimes and he doesn’t say things or do things that he should. Sometimes, he just cannot, because he feels empty, hollowed-out of everything important, two seconds away from playing tic tac toe on his arm with a rusted scalpel. Sometimes, he doesn’t function, because he doesn’t remember how. Those days are the worst. But with her…he doesn’t have to say anything. She knows.

How does she do it? How does she live with him? How does she know?

He supposes it isn’t very hard, the answer, because everything he feels goes back to her invariably, like friction and momentum stopping a roulette game. Luck. Luck, and physics. That is their love. That is them, on canvas, colorized 2018. Pepper likes art. They’ve had sex with the then newest won at auction Monet mounted on their ceiling (they’ve done a lot of stupid things, a lot of rich-people stupid things; things that you wouldn’t expect from Virginia Potts _or_ Tony Stark), once, and she had looked up at it but had said his name like _Tony_ was the masterpiece.

Pleasures, pleasures. He’s been a lot of places, tasted a lot of people (wasn’t called a playboy for nothing), burnt too many buildings. But Pepper manages to surprise him every single damn time—he can’t keep up with her (all his life, he was searching for someone who could keep up with him; he needed to find someone faster, instead) in more than one way, and it’s exhilarating.

Sometimes he wishes they met at a high school (she’s valedictorian, Harvard-bound; he’s rich, popular and has a not-so-secret crush on her since forever—James Potter and Lily Evans without all the complications), polar opposites, love interests in a teen movie—Prom King and Prom Queen, because of course. _Of course_. He kinda wants to know young her. He’s a fool, a fool, because if he were making the decisions, he would carry out Pepper Research if he ever made a time machine. He is a total waste of science and intelligence, now that he’s fallen in love. Tony Stark: An Unholy Mess.

Exhibit A: The way he audibly gasps when she moves out of his arms to resume walking, like some two-bit heroine in an overdramatic story.

Ready the swooning salts, FRIDAY—

For my love hath turned,

To the subtler beauties,

Of a fucking bit of grass.

God, he’s a man lost. No rational sense or thought shall ever appeal to him, now that she has walked away, and how is she not turning back! The cheek!

“Pepper,” he complains, and she turns back to look, vaguely irritated, and very amused.

“I thought you were just taking time to catch up because of your small legs, or were somehow tired,” she calls to him, and he is offended, but really not at all, what is this, “come on, hero, we’ve got, like half a mile left.”

“Much easier in the Suit,” he mutters, “looks cooler.”

“I think you look effortlessly dashing,” she replies, “the drowned, undercaffeinated kitten look is a thing in Milan right about now.”

“You had to stop being a smart-ass last century, Potts,” he grumbles, but it turns into a grin pretty quickly, and what is this, his facial muscles are betraying him, is this a part of this love thing? Maybe, maybe—he likes it, god, he’s cheesy. He likes that they’re walking together now, but she’s not slowed down to make it easier for him, which is also nice. He doesn’t think she can do anything wrong right about now.

“You’re okay, right,” he says, because of course he does, he’s too insecure and too obnoxious all at once, “Okay with this. With us.”

“Hmm,” she answers, not troubled at all by her fiancé’s jitters and qualms, because she knows him, down to the bone marrow, down to the last leukocyte, “Would I be here if I weren’t, genius? Some asshole made me CEO of some multi-national corporation, so I don’t really have time to waste.”

“He’s cute, though, the asshole,” Tony grins.

“I really don’t know. He has a nice ass, though,” confesses Pepper, smiling back.

Tony preens and she gives him a kiss on the cheek, still moving. Wow, they’re disgusting. They’re too romantic. He thinks he has diabetes or something. He can feel his teeth rotting.

“Can we just get back home, CEO?”

Pepper sighs. Her exasperated look says _who would believe you’re the superhero._

“Since you ask so nicely, Iron Man. Oh, Matt wants to talk about all this, we’ll meet up with him and Jen when we get back, okay? We’ve gotta handle social media somehow.”

There’s an old song in his head.

_We’re burning down the highway skyline, on the edge of a hurricane—_

It reminds him of them, sometimes. He loves her. God, wedding talk has ruined him—he is thoroughly, irrevocably, off the market. The socialites weep; their fathers rejoice (no they don’t). He loves her a lot. It’s going to kill him, probably, the way he loves her, the way he’ll do anything for her to stay alive and maybe not happy, but alive. He’ll die for just about anyone or anything, but.

Maybe it’s a cliché, but he’ll live for her.

*******

Matt Murdock and Jen Walters are sitting across from him, two sides of the same coin, (Pep begged off today’s meeting—she’s talking to the Board) and the kids are eating cake close by, at another table. They are also talking about how to potentially make a lightsaber. Tony’s interested in their discussion, and he just spoons a bit of dark chocolate-champagne cake in his mouth, trying to look serious.

Jen cocks her head. Matt rolls his eyes. Tony lifts a second bite up to his mouth and completely misses the mark. There is cake on his nose. Matt passes him a tissue, and his sigh is a living thing.

“Tony,” says Jen, pushing a lock of dark chocolate, almost black hair behind her ears, “you almost die every month. How the ever-loving hell are we to decide on a date?”

“Invite all the bloody villains to the wedding, that’s how.” Matt straightens his cufflinks for the seventh time in the conversation. “I’m pretty damn sure they’ll be too distracted by all the love to shoot this infuriating man to pieces. This cake is pretty good, but I said that about the last fifteen, too, so I have no idea where we’re going with this. Kinda wish I could see them. Should we trust the kids? I think we should.”

“I don’t think villains have proper formal wear,” Tony hazards weakly, and Jen throws her hands in the air.

“God save me from sarcasm,” she says sarcastically, and Tony shrugs. “This is the wedding of the fucking century, we have all eyes on us, and except for Matt and his goddamn virtual whiteboards, no one knows anything about it. Yes, we should trust the kids. At least someone will have fun.”

“Hey, all I have is a rough outline, okay. FRI is helping and the only thing we’ve agreed on is a confetti cannon.”

Tony thinks all of them are going to burst into tears. Wedding of the century, indeed.

“Veto,” says Jen through her teeth.

“Aw, why?”

Jen just gives him A Look, a condensed version of the one she uses for press conferences and Vanity Fair in particular. Matt pipes down (even if he can’t _see_ Jen, the Look is a tangible thing, okay, it transcends realities), taking a bite of the violet-vanilla moodily. Tony has that one shortlisted, but they need chocolate, so he’s confused.

“We can’t have a wedding planner, they’d blab easily,” he says, “there’s a king’s ransom out for any detail of the Potts-Stark wedding. Like, any detail, and I don’t know how many NDAs Stark Law can slap on a singular person. Vogue has a few teams focused solely on it. I still say elope to Vegas. The Board can stay at the Bellagio, and we can get the fountains to make hearts all week long. Cute.”

“Pepper doesn’t want that much attention,” Tony tells them, “the Bellagio, while pretty, is a damn circus.”

“You don’t want that attention either, boss,” Jen smiles. “The change, the change, I could write a bestseller.”

“NDA, PR,” threatens Matt vaguely, and Jen blows him off with an, “I get it, Law.”

They call each other by their departments and are irritated all the time. They’d make great superheroes, Tony muses, looking at them fondly. They even know the rules.

“We need a wedding,” he reminds them, not fond of the subject himself.

“We also need a cake, but we can’t get anything now, can we?” Matt’s fork oscillates between the plate of cherry-blueberry and red velvet, a silver blur.

“We need Ms. Potts,” Jen groans.

“Let’s get something up on the board before we go running to her,” suggests Tony, because Pepper will slaughter them if they go to her empty handed, and they know it. “What flavour?”

The kiddie table have varying expressions of sugar high on their faces.

“Harley gave up after mango cheesecake variation three,” answers Rhodey, and hell, when will he be helpful for once?

“Peach and raspberry,” says Happy decidedly. Harley has his head tipped back and is balancing the chair on two legs, and Tony hopes he crashes to the floor.

“Ned? Peter?”

Ned is shaking his head. “I can’t choose, Mr. Stark, and asking me to would be a sin.”

Peter looks about as close to tears as Tony feels. “Chocolate?”

“Yeah, same, I like chocolate,” butts in Harley unhelpfully.

“There have been around twenty chocolate cakes, come on, be specific,” Tony sighs.

“I don’t…I don’t have that much brain,” Harley replies after a long silence. It’s a very long silence.

“Yeah, Tony, how can you possible expect us to remember?”

Screw Jim Rhodes. Tony has a fork and he knows how to use it.

“Oh God,” Jen groans, “This is it. We are felled by cake. What did we muddle through fabric for? And all the movies make this look so fun.”

“What have you been watching?”

“Hey!”

“Children, we need a decision,” Happy reminds them. Everyone stares at him balefully but takes a bite of some other cake. There is a collective sigh.

“I am going to get so fat,” complains Matt.

“Amen to that, sister,” grins Harley, digging into the tres-leches cake, eyes wide.

Tony writes coffee-chocolate on the shortlist. It currently has peach-blueberry, violet-vanilla and dark chocolate-champagne. Tony wonders if they can have all of them, or is that just too extravagant?

“Mr. Stark,” says Peter, eyes desperate, an SOS signal, “can I give up?”

“Forge on,” says Rhodey strongly, but not unkindly, “the strawberry awaits.”

Ned sighs. “You’re unfair, War Machine. Those are unlawful and unparliamentary tactics.”

Tony’s interested. “Just how, exactly?”

“That’s his Suit voice,” Ned explains, “or, like a variation on it, and everyone’s gotta listen to _that_ voice.”

“True,” agrees Jen, “I call it the ‘media I’ve had enough, but I’m also a nice guy’ voice. Works wonders. Do you use that in bed?”

Peter is a vibrant shade of red, so is Rhodey, Harley and Tony are grinning, Matt has his head in his hands and is laughing weakly but steadily, and Happy and Ned are sighing and also unnerved.

“Do you, sourpatch?” Tony cannot resist.

“I need alcohol,” Rhodey answers, downing the flute of champagne next to his elbow. 

“You need therapy,” hiccups Matt, beaming, “but I guess Perignon is just fine. Why did we let you off your leash, PR? Think of the children!”

“Shut it, my boss gave me cake, champagne, and a bitch of a headache, I deserved that.”

“Cake,” Peter begs, “we have to decide on a cake.”

“I’m done with cake for the rest of my life, Tones,” says Rhodey, “you’ve done the god darn impossible; can I sleep now?”

“All of you, stop giving up,” Matt commands, “God, I had files and all to go through. Go get a job at Stark, they said. It’ll be intellectually challenging, they said.”

“Isn’t this fun?” Tony chirps.

“Let’s just ask FRI to pick, okay,” suggests Harley, “she has the most sense out of us all.”

“Not the sense of taste, unfortunately,” answers FRIDAY, tinny and amused from Tony’s phone speakers.

“Doesn’t matter—what are any of us doing with our taste buds? Nothing, that’s what.”

“Kid’s right, FRI,” seconds Happy, and Tony has a strong urge to do two things—one, laugh and say yes to it; two, veto the idea because Jen is currently glaring.

“We are not doing that, you guys,” he tells them, “come on, I’m closing the shortlist in seven seconds, then we’ll try all the shortlisted cake and choose.”

“Oh god,” says Rhodey, “get honey-rose on the list.”

“No!” Ned protests.

“It’s just a shortlist,” Peter says, through a mouthful of cake, “caramel-vanilla-chocolate.”

“Mm, okay, charcoal-chocolate,” adds Harley.

“I second dark chocolate-champagne, again,” Matt tells the room at large, “we’re all dumb. What are the actual names of the cakes?”

“Some truffle extravaganza, I’m sure, bakeries love those names,” Jen replies.

“Ugh, generic,” Tony says, “shortlist closed. So, we have peach-blueberry, violet-vanilla, dark chocolate-champagne, coffee-chocolate, honey-rose, caramel-vanilla-chocolate, and charcoal-chocolate. Could you please get us samples of these?” The waitress looks scared, but she complies. Everyone else looks pretty daunted by the names he just rattled off, but whatever. They’re gonna pick a cake if it kills him.

“Oh no, I forgot about violet-vanilla, that was good too,” whimpers Peter. Tony wants to pat him on the shoulder, but it’ll be poor comfort, he knows.

“Well, at least we whittled it down to seven,” Matt offers, “also, we have to take an arty shot of the last seven cakes, put it on social media with a reference to some YA book or something. What about ‘I volunteer as tribute!’ for that?”

“Ugh, not Hunger Games, too on the nose,” Happy says, “get it? _Hunger_ Games?”

“This is why you’re not PR, Murdock, wedding prep is serious. Bad puns? Nope,” Jen sighs across the table, “what about a song lyric, because I hate, hate, hate those captions which are just an emoji or two.”

“Bread, bread and more bread,” Ned says, licking a fork clean, “and then a period.”

“Cool, let’s all lose our minds. Bread, bread and more bread it is. At least it’s quirky.”

Tony looks around the room, heart filling. It feels like something will burst inside him, something essential. He doesn’t care. Suddenly, with awesome and awful clarity, sitting in a cake shop, with a fork of cherry-blueberry cake in his hand, he knows that feeling. He knows that this exact feeling will be what he feels when he dies. Love, some exasperation, and a whole lot of victorious-ness.

He feels like he’s won the war already.

*******

“Mm,” says Pepper, “I don’t think I’m gonna do bridesmaids, except for Jen and Matt.”

“Matt will be honoured. I think he would cry if he weren’t so tough lawyer. I’m sure he’s got his suit tailored and has picked out obscenely expensive shoes. You practically owe Jen a bridesmaid spot, without her, this wedding would’ve been run over by the journos any second. So, let’s get down to the brass-tacks. Happy’s ordained, Harley is using a modified Potato Gun to shoot flowers in the air, Peter’s ring bearer, Ned and the bots are bringing up the rear just as Rhodey walks down the aisle, Best Man,” Tony recalls, and sighs because that’s going to be a crazy wedding.

“Oh wow. I genuinely cannot wait for that.”

“People are gonna think he’s the bride,” Tony agrees, wicked smirk in place, “Wanna elope, Ms. Potts?”

“You’re so romantic, honey,” she answers dryly, “It’s no wonder you were crowned Most Eligible Bachelor six years running.”

“And the year we were on a break.”

“I do not count that, and you know it. You were still mine, even then.”

He beams at her. “I knew you missed me.”

“Every damn day,” she admits, head tipped up to look at the ceiling, legs crossed at the ankles, feet bare (heels kicked to the side because they were both sick of them for today).

“Were you ever going to come back?”

The question hangs between them, the air thick and full of tension. A question they’ve both only asked each other while doing things they would rather do except for have a conversation. Never seriously, but today, Tony wants the answer. The real answer, without diversion or distraction. It seems to be a day for truths.

“Yes,” she answers, simple. A bit of hair is escaping from her bun, hanging in front of her face; Tony pushes it behind her ears. She turns into his touch. It’s as much of an admission of weakness he’ll ever get, and he’s thankful for it. Time for a change of subject—or at least a rewind to their original one. But the thing he’s going to say is emotionally delicate. Well, whatever needs to be said needs to be said.

“What about Romanova? Bridesmaid?”

She looks stricken, shocked, her hand rising to cover her face. Her nails are a dark blue today, cobalt. They look like velvet to touch. Her eyes are squeezed shut, and he has no doubt that she’s reliving everything. Every single thing—from her backflipping Happy to easy chats in Avengers Tower to her signing the Accords and lastly, to Tony telling her that the Widow left for the other bank of the metaphorical river, in hospital after Siberia. They were secret sharers, he knows. Perhaps even friends. It must have hurt. Tony touches the hand not hiding her face, folding her fingers into his palm, warming, giving her a tether for the few seconds she’ll need it.

“I’m sorry,” he adds, “You know, I actually like her, even now.”

“The question had to be asked,” she says. “Thanks, Tony. But it’s going to be a media circus, and we are already prime targets, aren’t we? I like her too, but I don’t want to put her, put you, put anyone in danger. I don’t want weapons to be drawn.”

And that last sentence is not her talking about the villains. Sometimes heroes are so much worse. Heroes, and memories, and egos, and Tony is all of them and none of them at all, a contradiction in expensive trappings and desperation.

“I can leave it all behind for you, honey.”

“The Black Widow cannot. You and Natasha…you’re at odds. You’re at war, and she’ll hunt you out because that’s a part of who she is. The only reason she’s not doing that right now is because she feels a small modicum of guilt.” Removing the hand covering her eyes, Pepper shoots him a tired, twisted smile, “I’m sorry, too.”

“I wish we could let go,” he whispers, “I want them here too, but it hurts. It just stings too much to let go of. I think that’s just me being irrational and egoistic. I wish Bruce were here. He was always the sensible one.”

Pepper squeezes his hand. “Your feelings are perfectly valid, Anthony Edward Stark, and don’t let anyone tell you differently. This is not you being irrational or egoistic, this is you being human. Of course it hurts, it was your teammate, one you would trust with your life and then more, lying about your mother, the first person who you ever loved. Maybe you didn’t show it, maybe she couldn’t show it, but love isn’t meant to be a museum exhibit, all precious, clear and charted. Whatever happened, she was still your parent. They hid her death from you, and you should just know that that should never be forgiven. However bad a man is, however crazed, the death of a loved one should be broken to him gently, not 25 years too late in a freezing cave, by perhaps the only one who he looked up to.”

“Never meet your heroes,” he mutters under his breath. She always knows what to say, even if he doesn’t quite believe her (it’s the thought that counts).

“They disappointed me, for sure,” Pepper declares darkly, “Phil would’ve hated this. Or maybe not. We don’t really know the dead, or the S.H.I.E.L.D agent.”

Pepper had liked Phil Coulson, too. Pepper’s too loyal for this world, too perfect, and too hurt. Maybe that is why he loves her. Because they’re like opposites (but he’s not as lovely). Whatever, whatever. He’s never really thought about the reason he loves her, because it has always been such a Fact. So undeniable, his infatuation with her. So all-consuming, like espresso shots at 3 am, the falling Suit in the air, the sound of a Steinway. He’s not fallen in love with a dangerous person, but he has done so with a dangerous intensity.

“We’ve gotta get on social media,” he reminds her, voice ragged. Why does he think so much?

“Selfie, it’s a Wednesday. You want a kissing selfie, it’ll be cute.”

“I’ve already got a caption ready. Slap a light pink filter on it, will you?”

Doesn’t take much time for them to click the photo, an arty, out-of-focus (“out-of-focus is key,” Jen had told a room full of PR and actually, everyone in the place, “out-of-focus accustoms them to the fact that they are _not getting_ the fucking exclusive videos of the wedding, some things are private. Blur your photos, click pictures of the surroundings—for example, a bit of lace on a champagne glass at the dress shop, one of you guys in motion, a bottle of fancy perfume reflected in the Iron Man helmet, think aesthetic, you get it”) shot that is more of the wall of windows behind them than them kissing. They look really good, though, the unfocused camera adding a restful laziness (Tony is too used to sharp shots and newspapers, so he thinks it’s just sloppy, but whatever trends) to the picture.

“I think I’ll frame this one,” Pepper muses, “here, have your caption.”

It’s kinda generic and boring and maybe the slightest bit predictable, but beautiful for all that, timeless. Tony can hear the song in his head. _je vois la vie en rose,_ he writes. No hashtags. Post.

“I think I’ll get the post framed, that’s amazing,” she breathes out, grinning, “you’re adorable, you know that? And so literal, I love it, you romantic dork.”

“I’m good at this stuff, don’t be so surprised.”

“We’re not having the ‘who’s better at internet’ argument again, because it’s me. You used to be famous, but I think the novelty wore off.”

“You’re a menace, Potts.”

He would kiss her, but he’s too busy looking at her. Too busy trying to believe that it’s all true, that she’s okay with being _married_ to him.

“You know,” he says, voice low, “you could do so much better. So much better than an eccentric depressed guy who’s scared of the air when it’s too warm or too cold, who spends days perfecting the same weapons because of it, who dreams of the apocalypse more than he dreams of you.”

Yeah, this is going to murder him, drive a knife through his insides and take it back out. This guilt, that the people around him could’ve done better, been more whole, been faster, been happier if he weren’t in the equation. The feeling that he’s holding them back from being themselves, what with the spotlight that he must live in, the maniacs who feel they’ve been wronged by him. Maybe he was built to be alone.

In the end, he’s pretty sure he’s going to be looking at them (if they’re still alive, please let them be alive, please let him save them), feeling like he dragged them through hell. Feeling like he’d been dragged through hell, himself, though anything would be less painful than having to see the looks on their faces. But Tony hopes he smiles in his last moments. Hopes they don’t see the pain on his face, because won’t it be just another bad memory that he gives to the best people he’s ever known? 

But Pepper, wonderful, wonderful Pepper, just looks at him, eyes shining, and answers, “I could, I’m sure, but he won’t be you.”

*******

He stares at his palms, dark with grease from the guts of the Benatar and the remains of Titan. The remains of a boy he’d loved as his kid, a love grown up and childish in its’ volatility. Sitting in a spaceship, floating amongst the stars that he should really appreciate, for his former identity as an inventor (now, who is he, far away from all that he loves) if nothing else, Tony finally looks at his hands. Clearly, every line and scratch and ache visible, now that his vision isn’t blurred with tears anymore. They stopped flowing some hours ago—he thinks he has no more left, isn’t that a shame. An almighty shame, a blunder as big as whatever the gods of space and time thought when they decided to turn all those people into dust. Among all those people, though: there was also a child.

(Let’s face the reality, now, the one that he cannot look away from.) Tony Stark, ladies and gentlemen. Your usual pocket rockstar, a disappointment so huge that even the purple maniac from across galaxies knows of him. A murderer so massive that supervillains strive to be like him, respect him. Couldn’t even take care of one of the only few things he’d disintegrate for. Cold, cold, he feels so _cold_.

“You’re not the only one cursed with knowledge,” he hears again, everything playing on a loop in his head, in front of his eyes, even as he stares at his hands. The hands of the man who killed The Avengers. He misses it, misses that optimistic feeling that he now remembers as a mist around his heart, so faint he barely even thinks it real, thinking that they could be a team. He wants to laugh. He needs a fucking therapist.

A therapist in the middle of deep space, now wouldn’t that be a miracle? Thanos had some pretty balanced ideas, he wants to scream, he came from a good place, overpopulation is a menace, maybe he could be persuaded for a session or two. Tony buckles under the force of himself, half-dead and loving it (a sick, sadistic part of him going _the kid, the kid, Peter_ ), curving into a ball against the frigid glass, as if protecting himself from the stars. He idly wonders why he hasn’t scratched his eyes out yet, why he hasn’t flung himself out into the void.

“Terran.”

Oh, right. Nebula.

“That close to the glass, you make yourself an easy target. We get hit.”

He tries saying something, but words aren’t as easy as they used to be, for some goddamn reason. He really tries, but he can’t think of anything other than the numerous ways there is a screw right there, and how it is blunt but just sharp enough so that it’ll really hurt when he drags it into his skin, so torn up already. But he can’t reach it. Is he in shock, again? Again, really?

An easy way to do it would just be to rip at the makeshift bandages currently holding his intestines in (the nanobots will try to heal him up, but it’s too much damage, he knows), but Tony’s a masochist. Big word, small meaning. He articulates a pitiful noise, hoping she picks up on it because if she doesn’t, well, his energy reserves are depleted for forever. Bye, bye, universe. Real shit knowing you. It’d be a really sad death, too, this one. Uneventful in a way that none of his _premonitions_ predicted. Wow, that’s even better. He’s going to die getting to know that all he thought about death and himself was a lie.

It’s so crazy that it can’t possibly be right. He’s the Merchant of Death, isn’t he? The Futurist? He knows how he’s going to end, and it isn’t this. Back on Titan with a sword made from his own armour in his abdomen and his guts in his hands, that could’ve been it. In fact, he was kinda sure that it was—a belief made concrete when he saw everyone turn to dust at a snap. ( _we rise from dust and go back to it,_ church sermons, his mother’s silk skirt cool and smooth under his four-year-old palm)

Tony should call it something better, he really should. Just calling it a snap doesn’t really show just how much it actually did. But he can’t see past what that action would’ve been, the golden gauntlet with its’ stones, finally looking like something other than an overly gaudy glove as that overgrown grape must’ve brought his fingers together. He didn’t see it happen, but he knows what happened, somehow. He guesses there’s a metaphor buried in there somewhere. He guesses it’s somehow fitting. The most powerful of universes destroyed in a matter of milliseconds.

Maybe that was supposed to be his death, and now that he’s still alive, even if only in the most clinical sense of the word, he can just keep on living. Carry on. How, is the question. How to do it, lying on this cold metal floor, spine smashed up against glass, a huge bloody gash in his torso.

How to carry on, without Peter Parker. How to move himself knowing the fact that he’s a failed protector. How to trust himself around other people knowing that they shouldn’t be around him. For now, though, Nebula helps him, hauling him up, wrapping him in ratty blankets that manage to smell of campfire smoke, her metal joints whirring and creaking in a way Tony would’ve fixed were he at all functioning.

 _Thanks,_ he wants to say, but he just ends up snuggling into the warmth, chasing that scent of better times, and he’s sure she knows what he wanted to say. They’re both machines, aren’t they? She sits next to him heavily, and he knows that she doesn’t need warmth, not in the blanket way.

He nudges her, weakly, and he feels her sigh more than he hears it. It sends lightning bolts of ache shooting down his ribs, up his heart, the sigh of a person who doesn’t believe they’re wanted, needed, the sigh Tony’s sighed a thousand times. He nudges her harder, insistent. They’re broken and defeated and downright miserable, but they don’t have to be alone while being so. Grieving’s always better with company, even company you haven’t known for more than a day at most.

He wishes he could speak, but knows that if he attempts to, it will be ugly and not decipherable and will probably reduce his vocal cords to bloody shreds. He settles for just looking at her, vision bleary, eyes hurting with the effort to not close them. She looks back at him, taking in the overall view, the way he’s dead if he doesn’t succumb to exhaustion. She gets under the blankets, allowing him to put a head on her metal shoulder. He’s had worse headrests. He’s had better almost-deaths. It all adds up, somehow.

He closes his eyes, but he’s so exhausted he cannot sleep. He allows himself to think of everyone back home now. Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, Harley, FRI, DUM-E, Butterfingers, You. His personal deities. He hopes and he prays they’re still okay, because if not, he knows he’ll fall apart. Any of them being gone would mean his end, and he doesn’t care if that’s not the death he foresees whenever he does. He knows it as irrevocably and completely as he knows the Suit.

If they go, he goes. He’s already half-dead with Peter gone. And such an unnatural death…Peter deserved better. Yes, that was a hero’s farewell, but Peter deserved better. Peter deserved love and old age and death after a long, full life, things Tony had never wanted for himself. Isn’t it sad—the undeserving being left alive? He’s had his sunshine taken away, and he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to see. He knows he can, but he won’t. He cannot try.

What is this fucked up grief, what business does it have overcomplicating his sorrow. Can’t things be simple, for once in his life, can’t he grieve without having to go back to tell a world that he was supposed to save that he couldn’t? Can’t he just cry without thinking about the others that might be gone that he doesn’t know of?

Tony is physically unable to go through the process, unable to feel for one kid without feeling terrified about all the others that might not have made it. He cannot think clearly, cannot focus. His pain spreads whenever he is conscious, finding more things to mourn. It’s not really a state conducive to feeling hopeful about going back home, and life in general.

God help him, but Tony doesn’t want to be a hero anymore. Tony doesn’t think he’s wanted to be a hero for a long time. Peter was a hero and look what happened to him. Look what happened to probably the kindest Avenger (Tony regrets it, the mock-knighting and _you’re an Avenger now_ , because he had wanted Pete to be better, and better was not Avenger, better was not what Tony had been) to ever exist.

How is he worthy of life when Peter is dry dust and ashes on an unfamiliar moon? This is his penance, torture for all he’s done, maybe he isn’t allowed to die, to leave it all behind. Well, it’ll have the opposite effect. This grief, this hole in his heart and his mind will lead to desperation, and Tony can see it—his terrible, useless death. Peter had loved the world.

(Peter had been so young.)

*******

He hadn’t meant to blow up like that, he really hadn’t. He meant to collapse even less. But it happened. It all happened. The thing is—Steve Rogers is a man stuck in the past. Stuck thinking that whatever mess they’re in is not a mess. Stuck relying on Tony’s plans when Tony had long forgotten to rely on him. Stuck thinking that everything will be just fine, that one day the war will end, and he will get to go back to his sweetheart with the victory rolls and the red lipstick. The thing is, Tony had known said sweetheart.

Aunt Peggy.

She didn’t come around much to see him, because his father monopolized all her attention, but whenever she did, she told him stories. She was kind of a perfect aunt. One of the reasons he had hated Steve Rogers on first meeting was that he didn’t behave like Aunt Peggy’s Steve. And Aunt Peggy didn’t mince words or the truth. After the 2012 invasion, Tony gave him time to adjust, to maybe go back to the version of Cap that Aunt Peggy had been stubborn existed. But time went by, and Cap seemed to him a gigantic fucking hypocrite, because for all his talk of the past, he himself had bubbled up into a weird nostalgic caricature of what he used to be. He’d changed, and not in the adapt-to-new-conditions way.

_“Liar.”_

Yeah, that seemed about right. Tony let people follow Rogers because it made them happy. Tony let himself be buried under _America’s rightful ideals_ because they thought it was all true. Tony let himself be bashed to within an inch of his belief because people needed that to think good was winning. But he remembered Aunt Peggy’s stories. He remembered what the Captain was supposed to be. Margaret Carter, Founder-Director of S.H.I.E.L.D wouldn’t have wanted this. But who is he to dwell on what the dead would’ve wished for? Doing that with Peter just pushed him into a pit. No reason this should be any different.

Lying on the bed with an IV and a lot of other things invading his privacy (beep-beep, beep-beep, sing the hospital machines), he pulls up graphs of the destruction, of what happened to Stark Industries. There’s a Hulk band-aid on one of his fingers. Yeah, Banner is back. Turns out he’s just Banner forever now. Tony thought he’d feel happy or relieved when Bruce came back, after years of waiting—but he can’t seem to scrounge anything up. He’s in mourning, for the Avengers, for the people left alive, for himself, for Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange (14 000 605 possibilities and why does he have to be alive for the good one, is this even the good one, is it, why did you give the Time Stone up) for Peter Parker. 

He was way more excited for Danvers, though. Rhodey had been pretty shocked too, he knew, but he played along when Tony didn’t let it show that he knew her, just introduced her as ‘young blood’ in a throwaway add to his rant and enjoyed the way she kept her face carefully blank. And the first sentence they said to each other was, “I thought you were dead.” She told him that he should’ve just asked Rambeau, and he told her that she should’ve just dropped by Earth sometime. Then she said she had tons of pet galaxies to look after, what with her being a space goddess and all, and he informed her that he almost died around five thousand times in the past thirty years and her combat lessons didn’t help at all. It had been nice, catching up after a few dramatic heart failures (the stress of screaming did that, he was frail, and Pepper was _pissed_ ).

Oh, Pepper. He’d been so careful with her memories, barely thinking of her, only sending her that one message when both water and food ran out and he was sure he was lost. He didn’t want to miss her too much or he’d die of that before the oxygen deprivation. Oh, Pepper.

He turns to look at her now, the projections disappearing (FRIDAY had a slight wobble to her computerized tone when he first entered her domain, a hesitant, “Boss?”), the sheets rustling as he turns. She puts a hand on his shoulder, eyes on his, and shakes her head.

“Too much movement, genius.”

“Worth it to get to see you properly.”

“Stop it,” she says, sharp, sharp vowels and her eyes looking like they might tear up. Fragile. “I love you, honey, and you know that, but it’s too soon for the words. For any other words. I thought I was never, ever going to see you again. Ever. I didn’t know what to do. For the first time in my entire life, I was not sure of anything. The moment you took off with your bloody saviour complex and your suit and,” here her voice breaks, proof of the fact that Pepper Potts is in mourning, on the war-path, broken and titanium all at once, a guardian, “ _Peter_ , I knew something was very, very wrong. And God, I prayed. I cut off all prep for the wedding, and it was as good as a statement. I just did that because I didn’t want resources to go to waste. They believed it was my belief, that you were gone. And my greatest fear was that I would begin to feel the same. I love you, Tony, but goddamn you, I am not able to stand that casual love. At least not today, when I saw you collapse, again, suffering for people who will probably never realize what you are to me.”

“I love you,” he says. A tear rolls down her right cheek, dropping down her chin. Only one.

“I love you too.”

“I miss—”

“I know. I miss him too.”

“Pepper, I need him _back_.”

“I know, baby. I’m so sorry.”

“We’re not okay, right?”

“No, not at all. We will be. I promise you, honey, we will be okay. Rest.”

“I need to be married to you.”

“I’ve got people on it,” she answers, face drawn pale and tight and determined, “we’re skipping a lot of the hoops we were earlier jumping, but we’ll be married by the end of this week.”

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, unable to say anything else because Peter’s dress suit lies tailored and perfect in their house, the closest thing to a corpse Tony has, and he doesn’t know how to deal with everything all over again, “It’s not happening how we wanted it to happen.”

“You couldn’t have prevented this even if you tried, Tony. Thanos was always going to come here. He could’ve taken his time, yes, but he didn’t. We have to honour Pete by still moving on with this. He wouldn’t have wanted us to stay in misery forever and not do anything. As much as I hate to say it, he would’ve wanted us to move on.”

“We’ll do that,” Tony promises to his kid, “we’ll move on. We have to.”

Pepper smiles sadly, and it’s a start. “That’s the spirit, champ.”

She leans back in her chair with a sigh.

“Want any of the Avengers there, now that they’re all for togetherness, unity and unicorns?” There’s a definite bitterness to the question.

“A small ceremony would do, get Bruce there, send a card to Thor. You know that Danvers will tag along with Rambeau now that she’s here, the brat. Our original guest list is just fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Pep. If there’s one thing I know how I want it, it’s the wedding. We wouldn’t want to mess up the seating arrangements now, would we?”

“Hon, we have barely 100 people. Kinda bare for a rich wedding, but that’s how we like it.”

“So, let it be that way. I have one addition, though.”

“The girl that kept you alive on the Benatar. It’s Nebula, right?”

“It was kind of a mutual keeping each other alive thing. You know, deep space and all.”

“Yeah, sure.”

He says, “Where’s everyone?”

“Rhodey’s out on War Machine, will be back in three, Happy’s getting some stuff he wanted from the house, he’s parking the car right now, Harley is in the lab, I couldn’t keep him out of there for more than an hour. I think he wanted to relief-cry in there, actually, and I wouldn’t be one to stop him. Sometimes you just need to cry.”

“And in the lab, the tears come easier, I know this for a fact.” Tony wipes a stray tear from his eye, because it’s too painful to imagine Harley in there, with his Suit just as Tony’s been so many times before, breaking with no one to see, because that’s easier, causes less pain to the others. “God, get the kid here. I need to see him, make sure he’s there. Like, in front of me.”

“Sent him a message already,” replies FRI.

“Thanks,” Pepper says, fingers on a tab, twisting her hair up into a loose bun with an elegant hand. Her voice is wobbly in that way he hates, in that way he’s _caused_ , again. “Tony, you need to know…we lost Jen.”

Tony grits his teeth, shoulders bracing themselves for a blow that doesn’t come, and doesn’t attempt to hide the fact that he’s crying when Happy comes in. Happy doesn’t offer any consolation, just drags a chair to his side, sitting down heavily with the sigh of a weary man. Bone-deep tired.

“Hey, man,” he says, an echo of what they used to be (2002, an alley, and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth), lines carved into his face that weren’t there then, “don’t try to say anything. Stay with me, though, I’m calling for help.”

 _That was shit of them to do_ goes unspoken. Tony cannot count the number of times that particular incident has played in his head. It was A Point in his life, for sure. God, Tony thinks, how have they come to this? He hears footsteps barrelling towards the room, hopes it’s not a threat warning. Harley pushes open the door with a tinge of insanity colouring his movements, just a young boy, just a child, and Tony doesn’t know why he didn’t keep all his kids wrapped up in blankets. He should have, back when he could. Why does anyone trust him with their fragile minds, with their precious hearts?

It’s probably the way Harley rushes to him, careful when he tucks his head into the crook of Tony’s neck, and Tony feels tears wet his skin. It’s become a feeling he’s used to. He grips the kid tight, uncaring of his stitches or whatever bullshit doctors worry about. His kid’s hurting. What’s other pain in comparison?

“I miss everyone,” Harley (no other word for the way he’s crying) sobs, Tony’s heart twisting, “oh my God, I thought you were dead, and I was so _angry_ …I’m gonna kick Peter’s ass when he comes back, I swear. Me and Ned both. How dare he leave us like this?”

“Baby taser,” soothes Pepper, her personal nickname for Harley, another sign that she’s hurting, otherwise she only says it to him when they’re alone, or in a place where they cannot be heard, not the Compound, crawling with other people, “Honey, Peter…” Her voice trails off, like she can’t bring herself to complete the sentence. Harley clutches Tony tighter. Tony watches Rhodey walk into the room, head bowed, and squeezes his eyes shut, some of the tension in his mind abating. He does pretty much the same thing Happy did—fling himself on a chair, the world’s worries etched onto his face. He then breathes out an almost inaudible, “Thank God.”

“For what?” Harley asks softly, not crying now, but still shaking.

“For the fact that we’re strong, and we’ll get through this together, and no matter what logic says, Pete will come back. He still has to tell,” Rhodey wipes a hand over his face, the gesture as loud as a cry, “his girl that he loves her, the dork. He isn’t a boy who dies on an alien planet, I can guarantee you that. And that dust? Not a death. I can’t see it as a death. I won’t see it as a death. We will get through this together.”

“We will be just fine,” Happy seconds, a tremulous smile on his face, “come on, kid.”

 _Come on, boss_ , just before he gave the ring to Pepper, just after he trashed himself again and again, just before he did so many things.

“Rise and shine,” Pepper says, winding a hand through his brown curls, “we will get my ring bearer back, even if it’s after the wedding. We’ll have another one.”

“Yeah, we will,” Tony kisses the top of the kid’s head, and he knows he’s getting too affectionate, but he couldn’t care less, “come on, genius. Let’s get to work. I’ll do better with the pipsqueak who’s connected to me.”

“You stop being sick first,” Harley tells him.

These casual sentences, these admissions of care. Casual gestures that mean the world. One of those is going to kill him, and when he dies, Tony is going to remember these ones, because there’s nothing better. Nothing more lovely, more touching. He’s going to get Peter back, just for more of these.

*******

The day Tony is scheduled to get married, it’s a lovely day, all blue skies and the occasional wisp of a white, white cloud. As it draws closer and closer to sunset, the flower arch looks lovely under the darkening sky, almost luminescent. Tony remembers sitting down at a table with Pepper and Jen about the gifts and arguing about why he couldn’t give tiny bots to everyone. They said it was a probable national hazard. There are little accents of Pepper and Tony all over the place, inside jokes and favours tailored to every attendee, elaborate but still obviously from the heart.

Just as Jen Walters had pictured it.

Peter would’ve loved it.

“I’m not going to tell you not to think about them,” says Rhodey at his side, nudging him gently, “But I’m gonna tell you to think happily about them. What they would’ve wanted.”

“I know, honeybear.”

“Pepper looks—”

“Do not tell me. I’m a man of science, but this is one thing I like, okay? Anticipation.”

It’s an outdoor wedding because none of them wanted to go through a church. Tony himself doesn’t think he would’ve been able to do that. This is much freer, and neither of them have ever been very religious.

He leans into his friend like he’s done so many times before, and Rhodey says, “Don’t squash my boutonniere, you disaster,” but lets him do so anyway. A few squashed flowers hardly count—Pepper’s not a bridezilla. Tony is, though, so he avoids the very expensive, very nice-smelling hydrangeas.

The boutonniere is a work of art. Tony created the metal ribbons to adorn the hydrangeas with Harley, and the strands of metal used to do so are impossibly thin, and diamond-cut. The metal is from the Suit alloy. When the flowers wilt, it’ll be left as a small thing that could be seen as a modern art sculpture, looking like metal fire when the light hits it right. It’s also a protection instrument, fusing into a pretty, delicate alarm bracelet at a touch. Ah, the wonders of nanotech. He loves those things. Hydrangeas and lilies, that’s what this wedding is, and a single metal bronze-gold rose, created by himself and the bots, at every table. Tony’s proud of his flower skills. He didn’t learn all those meanings at boarding school for nothing. (Also, hydrangeas are Pepper’s favourite. And used to be Maria Stark’s.)

Matt walks up to him and Rhodey.

“It’s a beautiful wedding, I’m sure.”

“How is Nelson and Murdock doing?” Rhodey asks, head tipped to the left.

“Yeah, good, a good few years—always wanted my own small practice, and with all the leeway Pepper’s giving me, there’s barely any workload from SI, so we can concentrate on our own stuff.”

“I’m sorry about your boyfriend.” Tony knows his name—Frank Castle, but he doesn’t push it.

“Yeah, I’m sorry too,” Matt sighs, “he was really looking forward to the food here. And the superheroes. Mainly Miss Potts, because he’s seen you guys around.”

“I know, hasn’t everyone,” says Rhodey. This is probably the closest thing to a formal admission from Matt: _my boyfriend’s The Punisher, and I’m sorry_. Tony doesn’t care, though, Castle never does anything unethical, except for being very, very brutal, and seeing what happened with his family, he’s justified. Rhodey’s response is also a good one: _we’re fine with it, this is routine_. But Tony just wants one thing. So, he says, “How’s Hell’s Kitchen?”

Matt’s expression doesn’t change, but then it never does when he’s under stress. He’s a good lawyer. He sighs.

“Claire keeps patching us all up. I fall off buildings a lot.”

“Yeah, thought so, you daredevil.”

Matt chuckles. “Knew you’d find out someday. All the anonymous grants, that you?”

Tony just hums as Rhodey says, “Yeah, pretty sure,” sounding like he’s sympathizing with Matt. Why is he doing that? This is Tony’s wedding!

“Well, Jess is losing her mind and ranting about capitalism. Drunkenly, of course, but I’m worried where she learnt such big words. Stop being so extravagant.”

“You guys need it. It’s a rough neighbourhood.”

“Never denied it,” says Matt, shrugging, arms loose. “But you gotta be subtle, Tony.”

“Been trying to make him do that since 1985,” Rhodey grins, “Never quite seems to catch.”

“Well, you’re marrying Pepper Potts,” Matt tells him, “so you learn from her. She’s pretty much the best boss I’ve ever worked with.”

“Hey!”

“Apologies,” Matt says, not sounding apologetic at all, “but you know I’m right.”

“Go to the bride if you’re so on her side,” Tony sulks.

Matt straightens up, as if remembering something. “Yeah, I was gonna, genius. Just came here to take something. She wants it for luck. Where’s Pete’s dress suit?”

“Chair behind you,” Rhodey says, sounding a little choked up.

“Wish they were here,” Matt says into the silence, and leaves.

 _P.S. Wish you were here_ , Tony thinks nonsensically, and a little stupidly.

“We’re clicking a lot of pictures, right?”

“Too many pictures,” Rhodey confirms, with a tight nod of his head. Military, always, the brat.

“Make sure the press doesn’t catch wind of it, you know how she stressed on out-of-focus.”

“Privacy,” Rhodey adds, smiling a small smile.

“Good captions.”

“No emojis.”

“No stupid puns,” Harley says, coming up with a glass of water.

“It’s the wedding of the fucking century,” grins Happy.

“We have all eyes on us,” Rhodey claps Tony on the shoulder, and he straightens up. One last jacket tug for good luck.

“Tony,” Rhodey says, after a little cough, “I am so fucking glad to have come to this point, machine leg and all. There was a time when all of us were pretty damn worried about whether you were going to be alive the next day, and we couldn’t hope for anything. There was a time when I thought you were too betrayed to open up again, and I despaired. Then she came, and you guys fell in love, and we didn’t stop worrying. But she came to worry with us, and we knew she was quality stuff. So, thank God she has trashy, trashy taste, friend, because otherwise I would’ve married you out of desperation. You aren’t going to get anyone better, but let’s face it, neither is she, because only you two would be so simultaneously, sentimentally stupid so as to fall in love so spectacularly. You’re soulmates, Tones. Don’t screw it up.”

He’s going to cry, and the wedding hasn’t even started. Thank God Jen insisted on zero media coverage except for some prepped photos.

“Save it for the Best Man speech, Rhodes,” he says instead, but his voice breaks pretty tellingly in the middle and Rhodey laughs.

“Let’s do it, boss,” FRI tells him.

Happy has left to take his place at the altar, and Harley hoists his flower petal cannon on his waist, like a mother with a toddler. He gives Tony a two-fingered salute and turns to the fabric fluttering in the wind. Pushing it aside leads to the aisle.

“Get it done, lover-boy,” he says, and leaves.

Tony looks up at the sky, breathes in the sweet air.

“I wish you were here. I bet you’re screaming at me right now, that I’m getting this late, that I have to move it. Thank you, Jen. I hope you’ve got a good seat to this wedding, both of you. I’ll save a piece of cake for you, Pete, honey. We miss you.”

He pushes through as some opening music swells.

It doesn’t take a lot of time for everyone to fall in position, the bots rolling down the aisle dressed in tiny tuxedo bows while gently showering everyone with confetti. There’s Harley with the amazingly uncoordinated flowers, and the rings float on a repulsor-powered cushion patterned with spider-webs as Ned and May watch delightedly and perhaps a little sadly. Tony sees Matt wink at him when he comes through, preceding Rhodey. Empty space for Jen.

“It’s main event time,” Rhodey whispers.

The Wedding March begins.

Pepper steps out, and Tony loses all of his mental faculties. Oh God. Holy shit. She looks amazing. She looks like nothing Tony’s ever seen. She looks like _everything_ , the smile on her face, the bouquet in her hands, the bouquet which she kept a secret from everybody, and it’s red and gold (metal, the gold ones) roses in the shape of an Iron Man mask.

Hell, if he wasn’t in love with this woman already, this moment would be it. She’s eschewed a veil and gone for a simple circlet of pearls and twisted silver, which glints in her hair. Her red hair glows like fire in the dying sunlight, dropping down in curls to the small of her back, and Tony remembers that one dance in 2008. It’s the same hairstyle. It’s the same smile on her face, like she’s putting something precious and fragile of hers out in the open, risking something, but also like she knows him, security number and all.

Her dress is…well, it’s a miracle of fabric engineering and he’s going to find whatever designer did this and give them so many gifts, whatever they want, really, it’s that good. The dress is pure white and so beautiful it hurts to look at—fuck, he’s tearing up. Blame it on the light, Stark. Strapless, silk, no stone detailing, no lace. Simple. No big flouncy Cinderella skirt, thank the heavens. She’s always favoured sleek dresses—sharp suits, A-line skirts. The gown’s no different, but somehow more liquid?

Tony doesn’t know the first thing about dresses, but she looks gorgeous. And very tall. She’s never favoured showy makeup, and her lipstick is a subtle shade of pink. All the rest of the attention has been diverted to making her glow and glimmer, ethereal. The end result is her looking like an honest-to-God angel, and wow, Tony does not deserve this woman. But she wants him still, because she’s still walking, no hint of nervousness, and she gets whatever she wants.

Yay, tears. He looks like a mess and she’s not even three-fourths down the aisle. This is a very long aisle, he’s sure Pepper’s walking extra slowly just so she can see him dissolve into a bigger crying mess every second. Rhodey passes him a huge wad of tissues and he resists the urge to say _one at a time, you had one job_ , but he suspects his friend is crying too. Yes, there are sniffs. A lot of sniffs. Is everyone standing here crying? Oh God. So much for being hardened superheroes. Oh hell, even Happy is sniffling. Pepper’s smile is now a full smirk of sadistic satisfaction. Tony falls in love all over again. He sees Maria sitting with Carol in the crowd, smiling softly. Carol’s grin threatens to split her face, and he bets she’s taken a dozen blackmail pictures of everyone crying with the help of Nebula.

If they sell them to Everheart, they are going to have _words_.

She’s reached him, and she stops for a second, lifts the Iron Man bouquet to her lips, and kisses it, just like on that rooftop where they kissed for the first time after Vanko was done being a dumbass. The assembled aww.

“Hnnghk,” he articulates, practically crazy with love, blinking tears out of his eyes, and goodness, have his tear ducts been dormant his whole life and decided that they will function now? She steps on the altar, beneath the flower arch. The sobs intensify.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the joyous and much prayed-for union of Virginia Potts and Anthony Edward Stark. I am Harold Hogan, called Happy because of Mr. Stark being unable to complete his birthday song after being beaten the hell up behind a warehouse after his 32nd birthday. I am performing this wedding because of getting my license to perform weddings, given to me by an AI named FRIDAY, who tends to play pranks, which is one of the reasons why I am slightly worried.”

Laughter from the audience.

“Hilarious. You do remember your status as a fairly high-profile power couple, yes? Okay, this is an adorable match. They are very much in love with each other and one is dramatic enough for us all, which is why I am skipping the whole sermon thing that ministers tend to do at weddings. So, do you, Virginia, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband? In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” says Pepper, and Tony feels a load lift off of his chest.

“Do you, Tony, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, as long as you both shall live?”

Tony stares at Pepper. “I do.” He loves her.

There’s a hush among the little gathering that Tony thinks is something almost worshipful, but he’s guilty of that, too, looking at Pepper. His soon-to-be _lawfully wedded wife!_ Wow, that thought’s a rush.

“According to tradchristianweddings.com, I have to ‘emphasize the significance of the vows they’re about to exchange’ now. I doubt that anyone will listen to all that, so I’m going to give you the footnotes. You all know how they met, the whole pepper spray debacle and the way Virginia Potts unknowingly saved SI billions of dollars just by screaming at Anthony Edward Stark, playboy extraordinaire, to get his head out of his ass and in the finances.”

“Way stronger language,” Tony butts in, and everybody laughs. Pepper blushes prettily.

“It’s the modern love story,” Happy continues, “less roses, more hospitals. Also, a crazy, crazy time when they took a break. That was not good for anyone involved. No one was happy. I thought they were going to destroy themselves. But then they didn’t, instead of that they adopted, like 20 kids, and us employees at Stark could never have been happier. It was bad for the workplace environment, you know? And I’m not even going to talk about how bad everything was before Pepper. I legally cannot do that, Las Vegas has not forgiven us yet. All I’m saying is they’re better with each other. And I hope that continues, for everyone else’s sake. Anyone who’s against this union and hence the UN’s hope for a peaceful world, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

“I’m against this foreplay being so damned long!” Carol complains loudly and Happy shrugs. Tony can hear Rhodey chuckling. He thinks Harley just said, “Finally, someone said it.”

“Sorry, Captain, we have vows now. These guys wrote theirs themselves.” Tony’s hands are trembling as he looks at Pepper. And her cue cards.

“This is a wedding,” she starts, “which is kind of surprising because I never thought I would be here. Like this. In love. I have been a woman devoted to my work for as long as I have known myself, Tony, and nothing interested me enough to change that. Everyday melded into being the same, every date inevitably leading to either the bedroom or nothing. Saying this out loud now, I realize my life was boring. The work, however, wasn’t, and when I came to SI, my work was you. The mistakes you made with the accounts, the dollars coming in from the things you made. Life was a circular path and I kept coming back to you. By all rights, that should’ve been dull, too. But there’s the miracle—it wasn’t. You were different and interesting and illuminating, and for maybe the first time ever, I was off my game. Not by a lot, mind you, because I never am.”

The crowd oohs and Pepper inclines her head at them, smiling. Tony takes that moment to use another four tissues to dry his face.

“But you managed to shock me. Also, I found you ridiculously attractive. I’m not sure when I fell in love with you, I really am not. I know it was before our first kiss. I thought it was a figment of my imagination whenever I saw you making heart eyes at me. The kind of eyes you are making now, though less teary. I was pretty sure you would never, ever be interested in me for more than a night. Imagine my surprise when you thought the same. We’re a pair of fools, aren’t we?”

She’s smiling, bright and wide and white, and tears are welling up in her eyes too, and oh, Pepper. How could you ever think—

“Then you and I started being together. I can’t say I had any complaints. And then you gave me a couple hundred heart attacks. I do not want to talk about them, really, because it led to both of us having to leave each other. But know this, Tony, I would endure all of those shocks again, just to have loved you the way I love you. You can try to go wherever, my darling, to the ends of the earth and beyond, but I will always love you. No Suit, no newspaper, no villain, no destiny can change that. So here I am, old friend. And here I will always be.”

He moves to kiss her, but Rhodey has him by the suit jacket. When Pepper laughs, a tear makes its way down her face.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes,” Happy intones seriously, earning a glare from Tony, “top that, Mr. Stark?”

“It’s a cliché to say this but I won’t be able to,” Tony replies, “but it is the duty of a groom to try. Hey, Pep. I’m a dumbass. I’m sorry for all that I’ve done that has hurt you. I’m starting off with apologies because the therapist said a clean slate was essential for married life. I’m sorry for making you mad at SI, I’m sorry for making you mad at home, and I’m sorry for that time on top of the Potts Towers. I’m now tired of the apologies because you are too, and because if I start with the please-forgive-me-I’m-sorry stuff, it’ll be worse than that Justin Bieber song Rhodey now has as his ringtone.”

Another laugh; Rhodey hits him lightly on the back, but Tony is only looking at Pepper, who in turn is only looking at him, a grin on her face.

“I’ve always been very good at machines and at words because I’ve always known what people wanted to hear. But you…You are a mystery, Potts, and I swear, you drive me crazy. You’re an unbreakable code, Pepper, beautiful and perfect and all in my reach, but stronger than me in the end. Stronger than me always. Also, very rare. You understand me so well it’s actually baffling. The question most asked at society functions and charity balls like where we had our first dance is ‘how do you manage him’ in a nosy tone I absolutely abhor. But it’s a good question. How do you do it? I have more issues than I have hair strands.”

Pepper reaches out, gently squeezes his hand, smiles her smile. She’s tearing up. Matt gives her a tissue.

“But you’re here anyway. I owe you my life, in more ways than one, and I figured that one day you’d just collect your debts and leave. But you’re still here. So, I guess this is permanent. Hope I’m not wrong, that’ll be a shame. I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. I have loved you from the moment you walked in the door, and whenever I saw another, they meant something that was not even close to what you did. I have no idea how you couldn’t see it, really. We are both fools. You’re right, you always are. That’s another reason to love you. Sometimes I fear I’m wearing the word ‘love’ out and then one day it’ll mean nothing to you, but I just want to say that it will always, always, mean something to me, Ms. Potts. My love for you will always be.”

Dead silence. Tony hears nothing except the wind, and of course, people sniffling. So, maybe not dead silence. Tony reaches back for a tissue only to find Rhodey with an empty box. Great job being a billionaire, Stark.

“That was lovely. The rings now,” says Happy, voice full of a quiet gravity that makes Tony want to make him available for other people’s weddings as well. The spider-web cushion floats up to them, and Tony feels that familiar goddamn pang in his chest. The rings are inscribed—Pepper’s idea. Tony thinks he knows what’s on them.

“Will that be all, Mr. Stark?” Pepper reads out before sliding the ring on his finger. He feels faint and in love. Oh _God_ , he loves her too much. He feels like he’s going to explode. Her words on his finger, his words on hers. “With this ring, I thee wed.”

“That will be all, Ms. Potts.” The script is tiny and elegant on the platinum. It fits perfectly. God, Pepper’s a romantic. But then again, so is he. They’re even. “With this ring, I thee wed.”

“By the power vested in me by FRIDAY and I hope the marriage licence place, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss each other!”

Confetti is everywhere. Flowers are everywhere. Every single person is weeping. Life is just the slightest bit perfect. Just before he kisses Pepper’s lips he murmurs, “Dip me,” and she whispers, “I was planning to.”

She’s perfect. Tony is going to die of the love he feels towards practically every living thing, and he doesn’t care. At least he did this.

*******

“Look alive, sunshine!”

Harley screeches as he walks in the house. He always does it. Pepper just huffs exasperatedly, and Tony, undercaffeinated after an engineering binge (yeah, he still does those, and Pep still works too much, they’re just married, not brainwashed, journalists), falls off his barstool.

“How’s the kid, Pep?”

Pepper is pregnant. 3 months along. Tony kinda hopes his darling child won’t grow up and ask what the hell kind of desperately horny its parents were to conceive a baby three months into their marriage. Tony’s just going to shrug and wisely say that the circumstances were hard, and that they were very much in love. He’s kind of proud of the timing—if all goes well, Morgan (the name was very decided that day in the park, that fateful day) will be born somewhere very close to their first anniversary. Very cool, a whole month of celebrations.

“Do not really know,” answers Pepper tetchily, but she favours Harley with a soft smile, “Seeing that it’s inside me.”

“Do you think it’s all okay,” Harley continues, tentative in the way he only gets while asking about the baby, “The…programming?”

Tony grins even though it hurts to, even though he’s barely awake. Pepper howls with laughter, so different from her usual calm and perfectly poised persona. “You two _are_ connected,” she says, gasping, “oh, I needed that, baby taser.”

“That nickname is atrocious.”

“You can give a bad one to whatever pops out of me,” she shrugs, “I don’t much mind.”

“Yeah, you guys seem to have a thing with nicknames and the like. Could I make myself waffles, ma’am?”

“Go right ahead. I’m at the table with some documents, would you pass my husband his coffee? Forget mugs. Just give him the kettle, even though it’s probably unhealthy and will scorch his tongue. He deserves it at this rate.”

“I’m your husband!” Tony exclaims, delighted about it. He stopped hearing whatever she said next. Pepper kisses him on the top of his head, and he nuzzles into her.

“Yes, and you’re adorable like this, but you do need to wake up, you know.”

“Jus’ gimme a moment,” Tony tells her blearily, “need to restart. Need fuel.”

A huge lake of coffee just appears in front of him. Tony looks down at it, and then picks it up. He doesn’t even know how he’s doing it. He’s a god. Coffee-Thor. Cor? He sips at it gingerly, and it tastes amazing, just bitter enough to blow out his synapses and get his brain alive and _fuck_ , it’s hot, how had he not noticed that? He jumps slightly at that, the coffee lake sloshing around in its container. But thank God, he doesn’t drop it.

“Greatest engineering mind of the century, everyone,” Harley says. Tony ignores everyone in favour of one more tiny awesome coffee sip. He can’t ignore Pepper’s small laugh though. She sounds so nice…

“Stop staring at your wife and drink your damn coffee, Tony. God, young you would be embarrassed as hell seeing you like this. Party animal you most certainly are not. No, nope, now you’re all Dad. And the baby isn’t even here yet.”

“You’re my wife!”

Harley groans. Tony grins, wide and bright, and gulps down the coffee which isn’t that hot now. His head is clearing itself in time, but for now he’s just happy about his wife.

“Pepper, Tony is a menace, and I want to leave this place, but your garage is the most advanced place for engineering, and you have an amazing waffle maker and I need to talk to my little sis FRIDAY. So, you see my dilemma. How can you live with him being so repulsively romantic? You guys have been in the honeymoon phase for literally forever now, even Happy’s complaining. Happy, who ships you guys like there’s no tomorrow.”

“There might not be,” Pepper calls from the breakfast table. Tony’s heart clenches.

“Honey,” he promises, perfectly sincere even if his vision is maybe blurry, “there will always be a tomorrow for you. I will ensure that.”

“Ugh, you romantic,” Harley laments, lightening the tone efficiently. Tony looks up at him. His hair is very shiny, and very long.

“You need a haircut, boy.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Tony nods gracefully, sweeping an arm in an arc, telling Harley to sit down. He does. “Want waffles, Tony?”

“No, let me get over with the coffee.” He’ll vomit if he encounters food. “Where’s everyone?”

“Happy is still asleep, Rhodey is doing his early morning practice runs around the lake, and I am here. May called a few minutes ago to say good morning, and I’m pretty sure Ned’s asleep. Dunno about Matt. I guess Pepper would know, they’re best friends, right?”

Tony hums a yes, smelling the deep rich smell of coffee done right and strong without milk or god forbid, sugar. He shudders at the thought of sugar in his coffee. Some things are holy, and not to be ruined. Things like coffee. And Pepper. And the lake. The lake is pretty nice. Tony has a tiny boat, too, for the lake. They go swimming, sometimes. They might go today.

“Swimming, Harl?”

“Why not? I’ll get my special stuff out, dust off the cobwebs.”

“I veto the scuba suit, menace,” Pepper says as she comes back into the room. Tony reaches for her, but he can’t get off the barstool, so he just makes a weird, needy noise. It’s very high-pitched. Everyone ignores him. Harley leaves in pursuit of waffles, but they can still hear him talk. It’s good. Noise is good. It relaxes Tony, lets him know that there are people around who love him.

“Fine, fine, a normal swim-suit. That okay, CEO?”

“I guess that’s manageable, intern.”

She sits next to him, _finally_ , curving her face into the crook of his neck with easy familiarity. Tony loves lazy mornings like these, everyone shaking awake slowly as the sun begins to shine over the place they love. It’s quite a big property, a house with a lake, an actual lake, and a tiny forest surrounding all of it, a place for kids to play camping. Tony might get a pet someday, who knows. Tony really likes the house. It’s all homey and nice, not at all like the museum-like mansion he grew up in, the sleek but often sharp lines of the Tower, or the minimalist, structured beauty of the Malibu house ( _god,_ he misses that house, a pang of regret in his chest every time he thinks about it). It’s warm. It’s very…them.

Happy’s art put up in the living room, Matt’s braille books and law files in the bookshelves, Rhodey’s old MIT sweatshirt in a proper picture frame in the garage, Pepper in the lines of the house, the bots in the way the clean-up in the garage workshop is never quite perfect, Jen’s diagrams in the study, FRIDAY in the smooth way the household survives, Tony in the metal accents that decorate the rooms, Harley in the bits and pieces of colourful clutter which you can find anywhere, May in the old, loved Italian recipes on the kitchen island, Ned in the endless charts of improvements on the Spidey-suit. Peter—Peter in the glossy, framed photographs of New York from high up, mind-blowing angles, Queens especially, photos that would be impossible for a normal human to take.

“Swinging around skyscrapers gets you really great shots sometimes, Mr. Stark, and I like this place,” the kid had said, “Happy Birthday.”

Tony misses him, he really does. Tony wishes he were here, preparing for swimming just as they are. Or sleeping in his own bed in Queens, unknowing of the alarm about to ring, and having to wake up for school, disgruntled and sleepy but _safe_. Back to the house, though, it’s very eco-friendly, too. Almost no carbon footprint, and Tony’s damn proud of how he managed it. Tony’s damn proud of how they’re all coping.

Tony remembers when he first got to know that Pepper was pregnant.

It had been a Monday. It had been night. He had been looking out of the huge bedroom window to see the pretty fairy lights on the porch, and had been wondering about whether to change their colour or make them glow softer or brighter or just rip them off and replace with a different string of LEDs. Then she had come out of their en suite, looking pale. Paler than usual. She had been wearing a light blue sleeveless turtleneck and white pyjama pants, some light, satiny material.

He’d turned to look at her, properly look at her. Tony Stark properly. ‘This-is-a-matter-of-life-and-death’ properly. The way he’s always looked at Pepper, really, just twelve percent more...condensed. It says a lot that the way he looks at Pepper is the same way he looks at the guts of the Suit. Then he’d noticed. A hand curving lightly, very lightly over her torso, hovering over it, like she was afraid to hurt something. A hand fisted behind her back. Looking back on it, it wasn’t very obvious. Another person probably wouldn’t have caught it. But it had been obvious to him.

“You know,” she had said, because she has always been the faster one.

“Oh,” he had said, because then it had hit him with the force of a speeding train. He was going to be a _father_. To a _baby_.

To a child that wasn’t mechanical or past its potty-training stage.

Then he’d very promptly fainted. Before he’d done so, the last moments of consciousness were Pepper saying, smugly, “I knew this was going to happen.” The first thing he’d done when he’d woken up was reassure her, he was very happy to be a father and oh my God, did she need anything? Then he was well on his way to Panic City. He’d ordered everything an expecting mother could ever need, and sent a somewhat-threatening, somewhat-pleading message to all of Stark Industries.

Memorable points of said message had been: _oh my God, if any of you are parents, mass meeting with me tomorrow in the grounds; if any one, I MEAN ANYONE, even turns her temper one degree away from ‘completely happy and content,’ expect me with the Suit, carrying your coffin; how many pillows is too many pillows for Pepper; if anything happens to her I am going to jump off a cliff and you will all be fired and jailed; oh God, there is going to be a baby around me, shouldn’t that be illegal?_

Stark Industries has a lot of attitude. Each department had replied back to the frantic-father-message. Memorable replies had been: _we have work to do; we hate you, not Ms. Potts, chill; no number of pillows is too many, but we know you, so donate about 75% of what you’ve bought, because it is too much; this is the most authority you’ve ever attempted to exercise as an employee of this company, boy; no one wants Ms. Potts unhappy, though R &D would love to see the Suit; mass parent meeting at ten, you’ll need it, if you’re a minute late we’re all drunk; yes, it should be, but we’re well past that, she married you for some reason; shut up, you’re a Dad already. _

Also, one lone congratulations. Tony has always underestimated how nice Stark Psych is.

Then someone leaked it out into the free world, and there were too many congratulations. Flowers, fruit baskets. Ned ripped the wrapping paper off of things and ranked it (“oh, this baby is from Tennessee, because it’s a definite ten I see”) by how shiny it all was. Rhodey took all the white (“hey, I need some, I was just reading a book”) daisies, if there were any. May had the cookies (“if I see a single granola bar, I will not be responsible for my actions”) in the cookie bouquet. Harley threw out the little beige-ish onesie (“no, it’s revolting, no one who lives in my vacation house is wearing that”) that one company had decided to send. Happy sorted (“Michelle says she owes Pepper pasta, wants advice about suits she recently bought”) the celebrity cards. Pepper (“I am already so sick of this”) wearily passed them all the strawberries.

It had been nice. He’s now less nervous about the whole baby thing, but as he feels the slowly-growing curve of Pepper’s stomach, he feels the other thing he’ll kill himself for. And live for. This must be what love at first touch. It was pretty instantaneous, he knows. He’s loved what’s growing in her forever.

*******

Tony is looking at a place which isn’t regular, a place he’s never been. He looks around, and the walls seem to be made of metal, with drawer-like things everywhere.

Oh.

This is a morgue.

He just looks around, trying to figure out why he’s here. He doesn’t feel any different from normal, but wait. No aches. No pain anywhere. Seriously. He feels more pain-free than he ever has in his entire life. Even on the good drugs, he can feel it. it’s a constant of his life, perhaps one of the only few.

“Morgan Stark,” says Peter Parker, the name rounded and abnormal, like he’s talking through water, but Tony just latches onto the fact that he is talking to Peter. He doesn’t even question, even though he should.

“Yes,” he answers.

“It’s a beautiful name,” says the kid, and Tony feels his heart swell.

“But why didn’t you wait for me?” The kid asks, and he feels shocked, to his very bones, they didn’t wait for him, of course, of course, the kid’s sad, of course.

He watched tears well up in the child, _his_ child’s eyes, and can do nothing except say, “You would’ve wanted us to move on. You like growth. Innovation. New things.”

A tear rolls down his cheek, and he looks so real, and so alive that Tony physically itches with the feeling of remembering his memories of how he’d turned into dust—

“You moved on without me. Like I wasn’t important. You left.”

Peter Parker cannot be here, Tony had failed, Peter Parker had turned into _dust through his fingers on alien land_ —

“I came back for you,” Peter lilts, and there are his tears everywhere, his eyes red and scrubbed, like he’s been crying for years, and Tony wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around him in a hug, “But you didn’t need me anymore.”

He cannot do it. He cannot comfort his crying kid. What good is he?

“I wish I could see your child,” Peter whispers, weeping, “Morgan.”

Tony screams, wakes up shrieking with a pain that starts in his mind, his chest and chills his toes, a contrast from the dream that he remembers being physically, perfectly painless. There are tears everywhere, blood on his pillows from where he’d bitten into his left palm in his sleep. Maybe unconsciously trying not to shout. His sheets are tangled around his body, restricting movement effectively, so he can’t bolt up.

He’s trapped with his back to the mattress, linen forming a suffocating cocoon. He’s never wanted to be any place less. He tears through the cloth, and there’s no other word for the way he rips at his prison, a man driven into insanity. He’s panting when he’s free, and he runs out of the bedroom, all the lights in the house flicking on, a warm yellow, to reassure him.

It doesn’t do much but it helps, because darkness could’ve killed him. He drinks an ice-cold glass of water, lets it freeze his shredded throat. Had a good run, he and mental stability, for the two seconds it was there, that he’ll have to admit. He sets the glass down on the wooden table, resolutely refuses to address his nightmare.

Doesn’t think on it, the way Peter had looked so real, not in his Spidey Suit but in a t-shirt with an element joke and pyjamas with tiny lightsabers on them. Doesn’t think on the tears rolling fast down his face. Doesn’t think on the half-wistful, half-shattered way he’d said ‘Morgan,’ doesn’t think on the way he’d said ‘You left,’ like he believed it. Like Tony had actually left.

Tears again. And that is how Rhodey finds him in the workshop, staring blankly at a video playing over and over again—Peter’s video. The first one, the one before Germany. Rhodey is wearing running clothes at 2 AM in the morning, which tells Tony that both of them are pretty not okay.

“Where’s Pep, Tones?”

“You know where she is.”

“I want you to tell me. It relaxes you, knowing important things.”

“Stark office in New York. Should be sleeping now,” he answers.

“Want me to call her?” Rhodey asks, concern dripping off of him.

“No, just—FRIDAY, is she asleep?”

“Vitals perfectly intact. Breathing suggests REM sleep, boss.”

“Where were you, Rhodes?”

“Running,” he says, lips pursed and tight, “Tony, you don’t need to—”

“You don’t need to hide from me, honeybear,” Tony tells him, weary, and he just wants to sleep but then there are the nightmares and they will not let go, he knows it, “You never have to.”

“Helps me hide from myself,” Rhodey mutters and something twists unpleasantly deep in Tony’s stomach.

“Rhodey,” he whispers, tears welling up in his eyes, blurring his vision. Rhodes is across the workshop in a flash, sinking down onto the couch where Tony sits, and for a second they’re back to 33 years ago in a dorm at MIT after Tony’s had a bad day. It’s the same, but worse. They’re so much older, now. So much more and less fragile, all at once.

“We’ll be better,” Rhodey is saying, hands smoothing over Tony’s hair, “We’ll be better one day, just you see, we’ll be better again. Can’t promise you all right, because I’m never lying to you, but I know we’ll be better.”

“I see him everywhere,” Tony sobs, anguished, “I see him turning to dust when I’m awake enough to feel guilt, and I see him happy with all of us in my dreams, and I see him crying in my nightmares. I just really miss him, and I cannot bring him back.”

“I’m sorry,” Rhodey mutters, clutching him tighter, “I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything, I’m sorry I can’t do anything now, I wish it had been me.”

Tony stops, looks up at him, breaking. “How dare you. How dare you even say that? How can you make me imagine this without you? You’re an asshole, Rhodey. Yeah, I wish it was me too, anyone but you guys,” his voice breaks, “Don’t say it. Please. Not you.”

“Okay,” Rhodey sniffs, “Okay.”

They stay there, hugging each other on the couch, watching old videos and camera footage from the lab. It may be creepy to some, but it’s just Tony trying to cope. These are his photo albums, his baby videos. All he has left.

“You shouldn’t be watching those,” says a voice, “it will only compromise you emotionally.”

Nebula’s standing there, with a tiny screwdriver, fixing her mechanical arm. He doesn’t know when she came in.

“How much more emotionally compromised can I be?” He asks her raggedly. Rhodey is a silent, comforting weight at his back.

Her eyes look like pitch black insect shells as they bore into him. “My father—you don’t need to know,” she says finally, “You don’t want to know.”

“Your father never loved a child,” Tony sneers, “I know it, I know he sacrificed your sister for the stone. But he sacrificed your sister for the stone. He didn’t love her. Not unconditionally. Never unconditionally.”

“I know this,” Nebula tells him, patient, her only tell the way she’s tearing at her machinery, crazy and uncoordinated, “He killed children in front of their parents. Made us watch. I’ve seen your grief, Stark. Not felt it. I know what you should do.”

“Can’t move on.”

“No,” she agrees, “at least that’s what I saw. It isn’t possible to do so. Try to. I know how it ends. You’ll kill yourself. And all of these people will be left to bury you in a shallow grave and wonder what could’ve gone better.”

“You don’t—”

“I have seen this happen,” she snarls, finally, “I have seen such cruelty that it shall freeze your blood and burn your bones. I have seen parents throw themselves on pyres of their young. I have seen them carve the names of their offspring on their bodies with knives. I have seen them beg my father for life, for death, for something in between. I have watched them sell themselves into his service for two extra hours of their living. I have seen them decay away into insanity. I have seen it all end for them, Stark. And you shall not let your legacy be the same.”

 _“Is this the last act of defiance of the great Tony Stark?”_ Yinsen asks, and he’s in a freezing Afghanistan cave again, 2008, thinking about legacy and what he’ll leave behind if he lives or if he dies.

“It wouldn’t be fair. Not to the child you so grieve.” Nebula says before she leaves, as quiet as she entered, a wisp of wind.

“What did she just tell me to do?”

“What she’s always seen you doing, since she first met you, those horrible days on the Benatar. She’s telling you to fight.”

Tony bows his head, accepts it all. Accepts what he’s suspected since Thanos said, “You have my respect, Stark.” Accepts his horrible fate in its entirety, what he’s been accepting by bits and pieces since childhood.

But he has to live now. He has to live for himself with his family now. Because when the war comes? When Thanos returns, because he will, some version of him will return and Tony knows it, no matter whose head Thor chopped off—

When the war returns, he’ll kill himself fighting. Kill himself fighting so that the remaining, _his_ remaining can live.

*******

They’re living in New York now, heart of the city, in the Tower that Tony sold and bought back before it could be demolished. He’d had too many memories made in it to so callously just sell, no matter whether the Avengers left or not. He lied when he told Pepper that he couldn’t be called nostalgic all those years ago. Nostalgia is one emotion he does feel, maybe even keener than most others.

He sold the Tower because he was angry, then, couldn’t walk through the floors he made for the Avengers without wanting a team. He took back the Tower because JARVIS wouldn’t have wanted him to be so damned stupid, wouldn’t want him to give up a base in a major commercial city just because he has too many emotions. JARVIS would’ve wanted him to be strong.

Or just happy, one of the two.

Tony does love this place, the penthouse has such nice views, floor to ceiling windows and the dark gold sheen to the new wood floor (he re-made it, again, because there were too many sharp edges for the baby and he worries). The sofa is more rounded, less stylish, softer. Less form over function. Pepper had said: “This was not needed, darling. You know Morgan won’t get the amount of casually pretty this exudes, not now.”

A pause.

“But it is beautiful.”

They had a baby shower along with the reveal of the newly renovated Tower, but they didn’t go for the gender reveal. Partly because if they get the results from some hospital (Stark Law says Tony doing it himself is illegal, no matter how much money he has), it will get out and they really do not want that, and partly because both him and Pepper want it to be a little surprise. 

Yes, they are crazy, he is aware. The polite term is ‘eccentric.’

“Dr Bruce Banner, asking for you,” FRIDAY tells him.

Tony smiles a bittersweet smile. “Get him down to our labs, FRI.”

His feelings about Bruce aren’t right. Aren’t the uncomplicated science bro bonding that they used to be. They’re hard, and messy, and a bitch to deal with, just like his feelings towards most people.

When Bruce fell from the sky to the Sanctum, Tony was relieved. Greatly so, really. He wanted to do something stupid like burst into tears and eat a whole pizza on his own, but then again, they had a space alien’s minions to fight, and there was no time for a mess. When he saw Bruce after the events of everything, he couldn’t pay much attention to him, because he was pretty ruined. When he saw Bruce the one time he was scheduled to go to the Compound, he couldn’t go through with it. The guy had to meet him on the lawns.

The elevator slides open silently, and FRIDAY lights up the floor dimly in the direction of the labs that he and Bruce preferred a long time ago. She doesn’t need to do it, he could walk here in his sleep, he probably has done, but he appreciates the help. It’s her version of a comforting kiss on the cheek.

The lab looks the same, all white walls with a few black and white photographs and a map of the world on a wall far away from the important science stuff. Bruce is standing in front of the map, putting a purple pin on Wakanda. The map looks like it’s going to fall down with the weight of its pins. Bruce has been to a lot of places for a guy with tangible anger-management problems. Bruce has been to a lot of places for a guy, period. It would be impressive if Tony never had business trips in his life.

“You should go to Norway,” he says instead.

“Sure,” Bruce replies, fingers stroking over the Baltics.

“Very zen,” he trails off. It’s very awkward, the air thick with a tension he doesn’t know how to joke into insignificance.

“Yeah, I’ve heard,” Bruce says, attaching a paper with a golden pin to the left of the map. The paper says ‘Asgard’ in shaky red lettering. Tony wonders about his pinned map of travel; would Titan look the same?

“What happened over there? You didn’t talk, you didn’t write,” he begins again. That’s his whole relationship with Bruce Banner now. Beginning again. Over and over.

“The place burnt to hell,” he answers, and Tony can see that his knuckles are white, “Ragnarök, the Norse myth. Apparently, all the stories are true except for the ones about the wily, undefeatable Loki Silver-Tongue who could get out of anything. Half of Asgard, dead. And the ones we could save…Thanos came for them. ‘Asgard is not a place, it’s a people,’ Thor used to say. I wish he could still say it.”

His tone is the most bitter Tony’s ever heard it.

“Loki died?”

He laughs dryly. “Yeah, difficult to believe, isn’t it? The moron. Tried to kill a guy with two or three Infinity Stones with a butter knife. Went out big, too, all that posturing about who will never be a God and how there’ll be a sun shining on everyone again, like life is a bloody musical.”

Tony can just see the grieved wry downturn to Bruce’s mouth even if his back is to him, knows it from innumerable things gone wrong, from him looking at dead bodies on the streets.

“You would’ve liked him. I…I grew to respect him. He was intelligent and kind beneath all that pathetic veneer of arrogance. Wasn’t very good at acting, least of all in front of Thor, but he was one of the good guys. Wish you could’ve met him.”

“You guys bonded?” He asks.

“Yeah, after the Asgard is burning debacle, on the ship which we thought was safe, after electing Thor as a king sitting on a tiny white thing. We talked about stuff. He told me about magic. I told him about the Hulk, my own personal bit of sorcery. But it’s malfunctioning now—I haven’t been able to turn even though believe me, I am so very angry all the time. I think Thanos scared the absolute shit out of the Big Guy when he beat him up.”

He sighs, moves closer to Bruce across the room. “How’re you gonna fix it, Dr Banner?”

Bruce’s fingers close over the blue pin that marks New York. He doesn’t take it out, just holds it, like it’s holding him up. “I don’t know. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I deserve the torture of having my mind warp between conflicting states over and over again. Maybe I deserve being stuck like this forever.”

The veins in his neck are popping, Hulk-green, but Tony knows nothing’s gonna happen. He’s now standing parallel to the scientist, shoulders almost touching, trying to comfort but not quite.

“I guess I can finally put that bullet in my mouth now.”

Tony sighs again, nudges his shoulder. “But you didn’t, Bruce.”

“Who’s to say I won’t?”

“Yeah, and leave everyone here to solve this mess?”

He starts at the sudden harsh tone that Tony’s adopted. Tony’s surprised himself, but he presses on.

“You could’ve left way back in 2012, but you came back on that little motorcycle that could barely hold your weight. You could’ve left for another continent where no one knew you, and no one cared. I would’ve found you, maybe pestered you for a while, but I’d respect your privacy in the end. You could have been no one, sitting up nowhere, far away from all this death and all this pain, people turning into dust. But you came back, and you became a goddamn Avenger, so you’re a lot of things, Banner, but you’re not a fucking runner. You try and you try, but you never manage it. And you know what? You won’t be able to now, either. You’ll fix this little problem, and you’ll come back to save the world. You always do.”

Tony presses his fingers to the Hulk serum’s pages and equations tacked up to the right of the map, looks at his friend, bares his teeth because he needs to.

“I know you, Bruce. I know you, so I know that you know that one can’t just leave the superhero life. It’s ‘till death do you part, baby. So stop trying to escape and let’s get to work.”

Bruce’s brown eyes are soft and understanding.

“You were always the best at pep talks, darling.”

“Oh, you made a little joke, good on you.”

“Don’t tell Captain America I said that.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. FRI, would you mind putting up all the data we have on the Hulk and the serum and anything related. Hack some government shit, my love, and put up everything related from Bruce’s old server.”

“Sure, boss.”

“You’re doing okay?” Bruce asks. Tony just hums some melody of some old song that’s been attaching itself to his neurons.

“Usual, but slightly more panicked.”

“Yeah, Pepper is pregnant, isn’t she?”

“Very. 29th week right here. She craves a lot of good seafood with other terrible things. Very bad combos. Let’s not talk about them.”

“Gladly,” he chuckles.

Glowing blue fields fill the air around them, the white lights turning off abruptly (FRI’s dramatic), and he feels, just for a millisecond, that he’s back too many years ago. The good ol’ bad times—the semblance of a working team, Thor waking them up as the centrifuge beeped, a very early breakfast made by Rogers with the rest of the team scattered around the common room because no one ever slept in the Tower, no one, and it was probably unhealthy but so was Natasha stitching up Clint’s wounds over a bowl of cornflakes, blood on the marble topped kitchen island. Back then, he felt like he was saving lives, all the time, and now, he just feels like it has never been enough, dissatisfied. But in this moment, he knows he’s gonna do something important when he dies. He just knows it, knows it like the periodic table and the joints of the Suit and the exact wood Pepper’s house is made from.

Bruce smiles at him.

“It’s ‘till death do you part, Iron Man?”

Tony Stark doesn’t really want to die, but he knows too much about his death not to, so he says, “Second only to my wedding vows,” and lets the music play, obnoxiously lovely guitar and loud drums and still a song he knows Bruce likes. Weirdly appropriate for the occasion, too.

 _Time, time, time, see what’s become of me_ …

*******

Happy and Tony are back on the road. Back where they always seem to end up. It’s one of their older cars, one of their older routes. He listens to it purr and pushes his silver wayfarers back in position from where they’re sliding down, feels the air on his face with something akin to relief. Some things are still pretty, and thank God for it. It’s just a huge freeway and blue, blue sky, soothing in its emptiness.

Tony does hope they find a food place in some time, but whatever. Scenic Beauty!

“How’re you doing?” He asks Happy.

Happy grins. “All okay here. Getting along as well as I can. I am slightly worse at avoiding Rhodes’ fitness stuff, though.”

“Unfortunate.”

“Oh, you aren’t safe either, Stark. He’s going to find you, and he’s going to trap you, and then it’ll be all over for you and your relationship with edible food.”

Tony groans. “Get the man out of his military job for a break but you can’t get the military job outta the man.”

“Worse, Nebula’s the same.”

“I think they have a very mature and helpful mentor-mentee relationship. I tend to think of Neb as what my and his daughter could’ve been like. Cute, right?”

“Save it for an alternate universe, boss.”

“That’s it with the snark.”

“Is it, though?” Happy asks, and Tony gives him a mock-glare.

“I’m clearly a terrible influence. I remember the days when you just arrived at Stark, skittish as a new-born colt and as innocent as the baby growing in Pepper right about now…”

Happy swats at him, messes up the hair. Tony pouts. “I was never innocent, Tony. You do remember you picked me up out from behind a literal underground fight club, you disaster.”

“Oh, do I remember.”

They take an exit and a left onto what is a small town. He breathes in the smell of the place and is happy. It’s present, that’s what it is, present and clean, smelling of newly-cut grass and if Tony didn’t know better, he’d say it was summer.

“Wow, your retreat’s downright idyllic, boss.”

“Just meeting some old friends,” he smiles.

“Hope everything goes well.”

They drive in front of a big white house, white wood and grounds all around and a Maria Rambeau sipping cider on the front porch. She still has her short hair and the proud height to her posture, but she’s older now. Tony steps out of the car, feels the ground beneath his soles. They all are. Lines etch her face, deep and storied, and he wonders if she really was all right, all these years without a lot of people. All these years without a lot of Danvers.

“Hello, Mr. Hogan,” she calls out, “Not staying?”

“Orders from on high to leave Tony alone here. Mom-to-be hopes you can beat some sense into him.”

“Of course I can, I’m a veteran, but I still gave up a little bit when I saw some of his press conferences,” she walks up to them, smiling, “2008, May? Jesus Christ in heaven, both of those gave me heart attacks. Fine, you can leave, your little boy’s in good hands. Tell Ms. Potts I won’t scar him a lot, but she’s gotta give me a margin to work with.”

Happy doffs an imaginary top hat at her, grinning. “Always a pleasure.” He gets in the car, favours Tony with a two-fingered salute, and drives off.

“You’ve got good people ‘round you, Stark.”

“I’m thankful every day.”

“Carol’s gonna be here in what, a few minutes? She says she was just patrolling the skies or something equally mind-blowing, and I put it out of my brain faster than she could take another breath, because I worry. I swear, one day she’ll tire herself out. I kind of hope that day comes soon, but it has been too many years now. Too many years of her being what she is, who she is, and she’s not going to change for my small town rom-com fantasy. Hell, I won’t change for my small town rom-com fantasy.”

“You’re proud of her.”

“There’s a reason I didn’t go the route Rhodes went. I liked planes, and I liked the air, the danger, but I wasn’t married to the job. I liked my girl. And then I heard she was dead. I didn’t retire then. Crawling into a cockpit was the only place I could try to forget her, and remember her all over again. But then she beat the odds, so there was no way I could go back to my controls. She’s enough danger on the best of days. She came back to me, a superhero, glowing lights and all—and I tell you, I was so scared when she came back because she both was and wasn’t herself. But she came back to me for a reason, right?”

“Duh.”

“Here I am, telling you about my great love story, and here you are, saying ‘duh.’”

“Carry on, then,” he says.

“She left. A lot. The saving planets gig, it had a weird cost, but I guess absence makes the heart grow fonder or maybe we just grew very dependent on each other. It wasn’t conventional at all. She’s a dumbass, like, a colossal dumbass. Brought me back a thousand gifts from other planets that were supposed to be proposal gifts before I realized what the fresh hell she was doing. I guess we never went the whole chapel route, but a very good friend of ours married us, white dresses and all. It was…nice. Nick Fury was Maid of Honour. My daughter was Best Man. She’s so old now, all grown-up.”

“Congratulations.” Tony cranes his head to look up at the sky. “Thank you for telling me.”

“You needed to be caught up on the fact that even I have a fairy-tale love story,” Maria brushes it off airily, “Every appearance of yours with Potts made me want to puke from the sheer cute. And that proposal? Lovely. Perfectly diabetes-inducing.”

Tony preens, and spots a fiery glowing light in the sky, says, “Your princess, coming in hot.”

“You couldn’t resist that pun, could you?”

“Sorry, but it was _right there_.”

The glowing streak of light takes shape, zipping down faster than he thought, and he’s doing calculations in his head, thinking about physics and gravity and is there no impediment to her movement and the fact that he really needs alien blood if this is what it does to everyone. Carol barrels into Maria, arms around her neck, lips firmly on hers, glowing light wrapping around both of them like a cocoon for a second before it retreats back into the blonde’s skin and it’s beautiful and all, but Tony cannot bear the touch-starved look on both of their faces and thinks about if he would manage for long without Pepper.

Nah, no, not at all. Maria Rambeau is a hero for managing. How do they do it?

“We’re PG again,” Maria tells him, sounding just the slightest bit hoarse. Tony turns around and feels his face soften even further, almost involuntarily, looking at Carol draped all over Maria in a position that mirrors what Tony used to do after a trying day in the Suit with Pepper close at hand. Her eyes are screwed tightly shut, a hand resting in the hollow of Rambeau’s throat. Her body is stuck to Maria’s, curves and edges and other squishy bits pushed next to her like she’s trying to crawl under her skin. Her now short blonde hair has been thoroughly messed up. It’s terribly cute and just the slightest bit heart-breaking.

“Sorry,” Carol whispers, not sounding the least bit sorry, eyes still closed. Tony cannot fault her in the least.

“She’s a bit uncontrollable,” Maria says, looking exponentially more relaxed than she had earlier.

“Yeah, I got that,” he smirks. “I still do not know why I am here.”

Carol opens her eyes lazily. “Eh,” she tells him, “I guess we talked to Rhodes and Nick and you were next on the very tiny list of people we have to check up on. You’re in a particularly bad condition, you know that, right? Nice to know nothing’s changed.”

“Smartass,” he grumbles, but he guesses the smile he wears gives his mock-irritation away.

“You are, though,” Maria says, twining her fingers through Carol’s while shrugging her off in a fluid movement. “The amount of shit that people did to you, and that you did to yourself—I hate it. I hate it all.”

Carol smiles a bitter smile, tugging Maria along to the direction of the house. “And he’s not telling you the most of it.”

“We in the superhero business know the importance of secrets,” he hisses half-heartedly, evading Maria’s glare. God, the woman is such a mother.

“I’ve always been the exception to most rules,” Carol drawls. “Anyway, this one-day break is basically for me to catch you up on stuff that’s happened outside this planet, and for you to tell me what happened all these years. There are a lot of things I’ve missed, according to all the history books. So yeah, not a rest break, but kind of a rest break? Don’t know how to describe it.”

“That’s okay,” he assures her, “I’ve gone to entire month-long programs with less description.”

“Yes, your wild, wild youth,” Maria says disapprovingly, “You really found the easiest ways to wreck yourself. I’m not saying much, but I want you to know that I didn’t like it.”

Tony groans. Carol throws him a razor-sharp smile. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”

“It was nothing to joke about,” Maria sighs. Carol’s face turns worried for a split second before it relaxes into a smile again.

“You can rant all about it in the house. I need food, hon.”

“Yeah, me too,” he seconds, smiling back when Carol beams at him.

He falls back behind them, letting them talk about whatever they talk about in hushed voices, and looks up at the (still) bright blue sky. It surprises him, how cloudless it is, how unblemished, like this is a small bubble of tranquillity that he’s managed to trap himself in. It’s like the feeling he gets by the lake, everything quiet and serene and feeling like he’s the only thing with any sort of kinetic energy in the entire picture, a fragment of a video on canvas. He likes this feeling. He wants other people to feel it. He wants his kids to feel it, after growing old and having felt all they have to feel.

The decisions are all made, his decisions, at least. He’s always known he’ll go out quick, go out bright, but this is a new fragment of information. He’ll die, true, but part of him will still remain, in feelings that people will feel, in the stories that they will tell; Tony’s not so fond of evasion tactics that he refuses to believe that his death will matter.

He will die, but he will still remain. Tony doesn’t know if that’s scary or reassuring, being remembered. He doesn’t know if he ever will know. Whatever. Even geniuses have problems they can’t solve.

******* 

Tony’s in the workshop, not doing anything because he’s pretty much done for the day, toying with some old projects idly, not really focusing because it hasn’t been a good day, not really. He’s very on edge, and he just wants to talk to someone. Preferably someone that doesn’t know him well, doesn’t care about pissing him off.

Stephen Strange’s face swims to the front of his brain, tight-lipped and not very happy about the spaceship situation. It was kind of a hilarious expression and Tony winces as his brain predictably replaces it with Strange giving up the Time Stone.

_“Spare his life…”_

Tony was never worth that, never worth a person giving up what they had pledged to never give up, never worth whatever the Time Stone represented, but it had happened anyway, because there are 14 000 605 endings and he guesses he’s going to honour the Sorcerer’s memory by bringing about that one precious good conclusion to the story. He has to do it. There’s no other way. No other way to avenge Peter, or the billions everyone else mourns. And if he dies for it, he dies for it. Physics knows he gave up fighting the definite eventualities a long time ago.

“Hey, Strange. I wish you were here, just to see me not be a jerk. I think you’d have liked some of the people that I know. I tried to find Wong, you know, because he was invited to the wedding. Remember when that guy we threw out of the spaceship came to Earth with his pseudo-minions and Wong was a badass? That’s when I invited him to the wedding. Wish I could’ve found him, but I think he’s mourning you. All the Sorcerers are trying to recover from having their forces reduced, and he’s trying to recover from losing a friend. It’s hard, losing a friend. Why’d you do it?”

He breathes in, breathes out. Wipes at his eyes, because his vision’s blurry.

“Man, why’d you do it? I don’t think you ever liked me a whole lot. I understand why, I’ve got a winning personality but I’m an acquired taste for most, I admit it. Different people have different tastes and I understand most things but what the hell could you have seen in all those realities that made you like me? I mean, jeez, like me enough to give up _that_ lovely pendant. What the hell kind of important am I to all this? You should’ve told me all of that shit before you left because I got nothing, Mr. Magic.”

His hands shake and he stills them on the cold metal of the work table.

“No ridiculous plan, no loopholes, no miraculous scientific breakthroughs. I’m helpless, and you know what the crazy thing is, Doctor? I don’t have a single goddamn idea how not to be. God, sometimes I wish so badly you’d let the big ol’ baddie kill me, because that would have been so much easier to work with, the endless unpredictable void of death.”

He spits the words out, and thank God for FRIDAY’s sound decisions; everything is sound-proofed.

“Genius, genius, genius—the label stuck to me since my father knew my mother was pregnant. And all I, the futurist, can do is know that I will most assuredly die, the vaguest of fucking feelings predicting something or the other about my death flashing in my brain and leaving just as quick. Funny thing is that none of those things are concrete. They’re not proper hints that you can piece together and try to evade. It could be anything, the way they all stack up and then lose cohesion and I—”

His fingers curl into a fist of their own accord, nails digging into his palm, and he sighs. The workshop’s cold.

“They tell me nothing about Thanos, so you all might as well stop having hope in me, if you can hear me, you might as well lose it and accept the fact that you’re all gone, and I guess I need to do that too, but let’s make a deal, you and me. Let’s make a deal. You guys accept the fact that you’re dead, and then I’ll do it. I promise. I’ll carry on, be much healthier than a man talking to absolutely nothing, okay? Peter, you hear me? I’m sorry I wasn’t enough to save the world. I don’t care much about the entire world, to be honest, and I know this sounds bad. Mostly I’m sorry I wasn’t enough to save you guys. I’m sorry.”

I’m just losing my mind tonight, he thinks. Nothing to worry about, it’s all okay. Thank God they can’t hear him. Some of the stuff he just said was very…honest. Yeah, definitely the sort of shit one writes down in diaries.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be okay,” he says into the dark.

“A very wise man once told me that nothing will ever be okay, and I loved him the more for it.”

He squeezes his eyes shut. Of course. Pepper always knows when he’s in pain. Pepper’s always there. She’s heavily pregnant and should really be sleeping, but she just floats over to him (he built her a hoverboard type thing to use when really tired—he’d actually prefer she not walk at all) and twines her fingers through his hair, stepping off the board as she does so. He leans into her touch and lets the tears fall.

“Oh, my darling,” she tells him, sitting down next to him with some difficulty, sounding choked-up herself, “I couldn’t let you go on blaming yourself for things that aren’t your fault in an empty room now, could I?”

He knows he shouldn’t, he knows it might hurt her, but he leans into her, her unbound hair falling into his face and it smells inexplicably like paper and berries, or maybe he’s just overthinking it. Doesn’t he always? Isn’t it what hurts everyone around him in the end?

“Stop it,” she says softly, “whatever you’re thinking. Not true.”

“You think you know me that well?”

“I know I know you that well. Married you, remember?”

“Thank you for that.” Really, every day he sees her or the ring on his finger, all he feels is grateful, oh-so grateful that she chose him, of all people, that she stayed. That she stays, even through all this.

“You don’t need to thank me for something that I love just as much as you do.” She sounds kind of sad, maybe. “Tony.”

“Hmm?”

“We’re a team. We’ll get through this. I love you, no matter what.”

“Love you too, Pep.”

There’s a silence during which he detangles himself from her to look into her eyes, missing her warmth even as he takes in the sight of her serious, kind face with its slight smile that he adores and her eyes perfectly clear even though she was sleeping just some time ago. Clear eyes, sad eyes. She’s changed over the years and so has he, but these silences make him feel that something important remained the same, an unshakeable foundation that is purely them.

“I gotta sleep, genius,” she says and he smiles at her, “Get up, I don’t like half of the bed empty. Come on, come on.”

“Sorry I disturbed you.”

“You should be, I’m carrying your progeny in me, and boy, it’s a load,” she shoots back, getting back up on her hoverboard.

“I’m sorry only women can give birth, otherwise I would’ve…” he trails off, tries to get his thoughts back in order, “You know?”

“And I am so very proud and thankful,” she says dryly as he follows her out of the workshop, “but again there’s your annoying habit for apologizing for things you have no control over. Like, no control at all, Mr. Stark.”

“I have no reply to that other than—”

“No, no. Another ‘sorry’ out of you and I ask DUM-E to mess up your wardrobe. He’ll do it, too, and with great relish. He’ll mess up all your designer Dad flannel shirts.”

“Hey!” Those shirts are a great investment. They are comfortably fashion-forward and give off a perfectly relaxed vibe, and they’re soft, so they won’t hurt the baby or Butterfingers and the bots, and Tony thinks they are sexy. Not sexy powerhouse like his suits, which he still loves, or the Suit, which he still loves too, but the shirts are sexy in a different way.

He’s lost the thread of the conversation, and hence he has lost the conversation. Life with Pepper: you gotta keep up, she’ll snark you to painful humiliation. Reasons he loves her, reasons he loves her. He should’ve started making a list when he realized he was crazy for her, but he was too busy being crazy in love with her, and now there is too much to keep track of.

He’s pretty sure that’s another reason he loves her.

She grins at him. He smiles back, mind still hurting with everything that happened and everything that didn’t, because he’s a grieving man. She’s the same, though, which is why she doesn’t say anything when he just keeps standing in the hallway outside their Tower bedroom, a tiny mental rest stop.

Inhale.

It’s not going to be okay, but they’re okay. And that’s all he needs. That’s all he needs to die for the greater good, all he needs to do whatever Strange saw him doing in that alternate reality that was important enough for his life to be essential.

(He’s never been much of an emotional altruist for the masses, he’s a selfish man, so all he needs, all he wants—)

All he requires is for them to be okay, them who he loves. It doesn’t matter if nothing else is.

*******

A lot of things happen all at once, and Tony is thinking and not thinking all at once, because they’re in The Van and Rhodey is driving and Happy is making calls and Harley is looking through the two huge bags labelled ‘BABY TIME!!!!’

(It had seemed a good idea at the time.)

As for him, he’s sitting at Pepper’s side as she does those calming breathing exercises and trying not to scream. _He’s_ trying not to scream. She’s doing very fine for a person who is being ripped apart by another person and Dear God, he’s made a mistake, this should never have happened they were fine without kids and what is she dies what if she dies what if he’s left all alone—

No. No.

“Exhale,” Harley says from the backseat, sounding mildly panicked but calming enough for him to sync his breaths with hers.

“This. Is. A. Sausage. Fest.” She forces out from between gritted teeth.

“Absolutely,” everyone agrees, because she is The Mother and she is not to be Trifled With and wow, everything is—so much unnecessary capitalization. Jesus, he cannot take this, this is crazy. This is a sick kind of rush, like adrenaline, but bad? Adrenaline spiked with the debilitating worry of possibly losing all he loves most in the not-so distant future?

No. No.

She can’t die, that’s not how everything ends.

“Inhale.”

Yeah, that’s one thing he knows. He doesn’t die because he loses her, he would’ve known if that was the case. He dies _for_ her, not because of her, there’s a difference, one that most trash romances don’t see, but _he_ does. He’s better than them. Tony Stark: Just a Slightly Scientific Romance Novel.

“Rhodey, how fucking far are we from whatever fancy hospital, I know we should’ve gotten people to the Tower, bloody hell.”

“Calm it, Tones, we’re very close and this is a good route, no traffic.”

“IT IS TWO AM THERE SHOULD BE NO TRAFFIC.”

“Stop shouting, Tony, it’s bad for the baby,” Harley interrupts, and Pepper gives him a tight smile.

“Sorry, baby. Babies.”

And there is silence, except for Happy talking into the phone about the ‘specifically requested doctors’ and ‘for God’s sake, any room will do, just make it a private one so that we don’t cause a riot’ and ‘I don’t know the difference between Empire Suite and Super Deluxe Rooms’.

Yeah, it’s a regular sitcom up in here.

“This is wild, isn’t it?” Pepper asks him, turning her head away from the window and it would be perfectly normal if her voice wasn’t strained and her belly didn’t look like a very oversized watermelon. Like, way oversized.

“Could’ve gotten you there faster if you allowed this to fly, honey, this must be hurting you—”

“I would’ve been worse if this were a goddamn UFO, Tony.”

“Yeah, you’re right, but—”

“No buts. I’m right. This is a new and exciting chapter in our lives.”

She shrieks loudly, suddenly, and Tony freaks, and they pull into Emergency, Happy running into the place with Rhodey at his heels, Harley lugging the bags as Pepper’s seat in The Van flies gently in the middle of everything. Tony sees The Van pull itself out of the place with a theatrical screech and rushes to his wife’s side.

The place is all fancy with the lingering scent that all hospitals have, like ‘this-is-a-fancy-hospital-so-that-common-antiseptic-bleach-smell-is-covered-up-by-chamomile.’ Chamomile, seriously? Do they know that Tony hates tea and want to punish him?

“Oh GOD,” Pepper groans, and Tony’s hands flutter like ashes falling down from a bombed-out sky. Useless.

“Get her a doc,” he snaps, loud and rude, metaphorical claws sliding out.

Rhodey claps him on the shoulder. “Oh God, you’re all grown-up now.”

“Best of luck, boss. No time for a lecture, Rhodes.”

“You guys will be fine, doctor’s getting here,” Harley tells him, “Just be quick, I wanna see.”

“Mr. Stark,” says a white-coated guy, “if you would please direct Ms. Potts to Room 2508?”

Oh right, the flying seat wouldn’t follow them. He and Pepper are followed by a team of Starched White Coats as Happy wraps up at the reception with Rhodey and Harley.

“I’m nervous,” he says to her.

“AH,” she tells him. He assumes it is ‘I have no time for your crises,’ probably correctly so.

“Okay, okay.”

She gets pulled into the room, and they say, “Two seconds for prep, Mr. Stark,” and he falls back and thinks about threatening them, but it wouldn’t do a thing. The thing about becoming a Hero is that you learn to pick your battles not on the field, but with people.

Rhodes is at his back in no time, like always. Happy and Harley are sitting on the chairs set out, talking about something that Tony can’t really hear, and his ears are fine, but it’s just that his heartbeat is so loud right about now. It’s unbearable.

“Hey, Dad-to-be,” his friend says as Tony realizes that he is unconsciously leaning into him, “Get your strength up. Morgan’s coming for you.”

He murmurs out an indistinct thanks that isn’t understandable at all, but they’ve known each other too long. God, he needs a perspective on this. Pepper needs a perspective on this. His mind is foggy, but he knows what he needs, he always has. He straightens his shoulders, takes his phone out, looks through his contacts.

He has almost 5 numbers under Natasha Romanoff because of her annoying burner-phone habit. He opens up their texts and there are quite a lot of them.

She started with: _Sometimes I wish I hadn’t done it._

He’d replied back: _Me too._ Tony doesn’t know what ‘it’ is, but everyone regrets something, and both of them, especially, have a bit more of those regrets than the average superhero. That’s partly the reason they got along well (after all the initial…hiccups) in a team that was practically doomed to not do so.

Once he texted her: _I’ve always wanted an alpaca. Yes/No?_

 _Wait till all the kids happen, Dad,_ she texted back.

One time, late at night, _Tony, this is all a disaster_

Him, bleary-eyed but not asleep, _You can say that again._

Her, linking a website (‘TONY STARK PREGNANT’), _Too forward of me to start calling myself Aunt Natasha?_

Him, laughing, _Auntie, I think._

Yeah, maybe Auntie Nat should be here, because anyone looking at all this would assume that they are friends, and Tony sighs deeply, staring at her contact info. They are. It’s kind of surprising to him that they are, but whatever. They’ve been through too much not to be.

 _Kid’s on the way,_ he tells her. It’s late, but the reply is immediate, just like he thought it would be.

_Oh God. Want me to leak it to anyone?_

He smiles at the screen. That’s a spy for you.

_Maybe some of the news outlets you and Pep like. But I’d prefer you here, really. Disguise preferred if your skills are rusting._

No reply. He smirks. His phone rings. It’s Killer Queen.

“Tony,” she says. He hasn’t heard her voice in a while. She sounds weary, like she expects him to take it back any second. “Are you serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? Morgan needs Auntie Nat here. Pepper said this place is a sausage fest.”

Silence.

“I know this is crazy, and not expected, and that we haven’t seen each other in ages, but come on. I’m scared of how this is all going to turn out, and the room she’s in has its door closed and they’ll be done any second and I’ll be holding her hand as our baby arrives in this fucking world. I’m scared, Natasha.”

“I’ll be there, then.”

The door opens as he slides the phone over to Rhodey and smiles at them all. Harley gives him a thumbs-up.

“She’ll break your fingers with that pregnant superwoman grip,” he informs Tony cheerfully, “Have fun!”

He walks in and she’s lying there, and her belly is _rippling_ , and he squeezes his eyes shut and tells the closest person to just get him by her side because he can’t see it or he might faint.

“Wimp,” Pepper says through gasps, and he really is. She grasps his hand in her hand, which is a veritable vice, just as Harley predicted and well, it is his left hand, so it doesn’t much matter. Tony doesn’t want to go through the specifics, because it’s all kind of a blur, but it is around thankfully only five hours or so of his hand being methodically crushed and Pepper cursing him out (swear words she would never say in her right mind with an audience) thoroughly for being a randy bastard who didn’t even think about the fucking pain she’d bloody go through. He hides his grin from her, because it could be much, much worse.

“I see the baby,” says the doctor.

“Fucking finally,” Pepper snarls.

“Oh, God, sorry,” Tony squeals as Pepper turns his bones to mush.

After quite a lot of pushing, Morgan Stark’s out, a bundle of squirmy wailing flesh all red as if painted with blood and hair! Hair! Tony cannot think. If he were able to, there is no doubt he would be freaking out and making a run for it, but he cannot think. It’s real.

“It’s a girl,” the doctor announces.

 _She’s_ real.

“Oh,” says Pepper, looking at him, eyes shining and this is fast, this is all so fast, “Oh.”

“A girl,” Tony repeats. He’s a father of something little and fragile and its half-him and half the loveliest woman ever and what if he messes it all up, sure would be like him.

“Our girl,” Pepper says.

He can’t mess this up. It’s not even a probability that should be entertained. This is his baby girl.

“Mr. Stark,” someone says, “We have to get Ms. Potts all fixed up and we’ll call once it’s all done and the baby’s clean.”

“I love you,” he tells her.

“Yeah, I know,” she answers, and he thinks the room coos collectively, “Same here.”

He’s gently tugged out of the room, gently thrown out of into a quiet but not-at-all empty hallway. There are a lot of people there—Nebula’s there, leaning against the wall behind Rhodey, and a blonde, non-disguised, Black Widow’s pacing in front of a still-seated Happy and Harley, who has a projection on the wall which has May’s face on it. He guesses Ned’s at school, despite not knowing what the time is.

He says, “It’s a girl.”

Nebula bows her head in what he thinks is prayer, Rhodey’s crying and jumping up to hug him, Harley’s whooping, sticking his fist in the air, Happy’s ruffling Tony’s hair in celebration, May is grinning, offering congratulations, and Tony feels hysterical tears trace his way down his face, detangles himself from it all.

“Congratulations, Tony.”

“Ah, Nat, you’re an Auntie now,” he says warmly. She’s blonde and he is sad for her beautiful hair (it’s still pretty, but red hair, come on) and sad for the fact that he and her haven’t talked in such a long time. It’s a dreadful mistake.

“Fine. If you insist. I’m an experienced one, at that.”

“Up for babysitting?”

“We might have to think a bit about that. You trust me with your kid?”

“I trust you with the kid like I trust you with the world. You did an okay job with the world.”

She smiles at him, a tiny smile. “Okay.”

“You’ve gotta come over to visit, I know you’re busy with co-ordinating everyone out in space and all, negotiating forces, but you’ve got to come visit.”

“So you’ve retired, just like that?”

Oh, she doesn’t know the least of it. He dreams of retirement, but his destiny looks him in the face whenever he’s mentally conscious, and sometimes when he isn’t. He’s tried for the quiet farm life, but he isn’t made for it. He never was. He’s pretty good at it, though.

“I guess I’m a mercenary now. Call me when you need me. Discounted rates for the apocalypse.”

She chuckles lowly, nudges him.

“Door’s open. Go meet your daughter.”

“Call me in after you’re done!” Harley’s still jumping up and down. Did someone give him caffeine? Tony has enough to worry about already.

“I will, we’re connected.”

The wood of the door is cold as he pushes it open, and he’s sure he’ll remember this wood under his hand forever, because he’s pushed this door open too many times and beyond said door his daughter, his _daughter_ waits for him. Yeah, he’s remembering 2508. When he steps in, it’s not a lot like the movies. The room smells very pointedly of not-blood or antiseptic, and the first thing he sees isn’t Pepper or Morgan clutched in her arms looking angelic.

The first thing he sees is actually the crib type thing that the baby’s supposed to be in. His eyes look over the polished wood that looks very synthetic and shiny but he’s sure that will be actual wood if he touches it, which is weird. The second thing he sees is Pepper, because his eyes snap straight to her, magnetic south to magnetic north. And then, then he looks down at what she’s holding.

He doesn’t register anything except for _that’s my kid, that is my daughter_. He doesn’t remember sitting down on a chair kept by the bedside, he doesn’t remember fisting a hand in the white hospital sheets, because all he sees is that those are his eyes and that is Pepper’s mouth and Pepper’s soft-looking hair that is the same shade of lustrous brown that his used to be. Her fingers are stubby and her nose is the most perfect small nose ever created and that she’s swaddled into the white cloth that makes her look so tiny, so tiny, how is she so tiny and yet so beautifully made?

Well, it’s only natural that he’s crying.

“I love you,” he says through his tears, to Pepper, to Morgan.

“She loves you too,” Pepper replies, sounding so, so loving and also thoroughly tired. She should really be napping, but she’s staring at Morgan too, transfixed. “Gonna take her some time to say it, though.”

“You can take as long as you want, honey,” he says to his child. Looks up at Pepper looking down at him and Morgan.

“You’re gonna be a great mom, just you wait,” he whispers, because Morgan just yawned a very tiny, very adorable baby yawn, her face scrunching up like a little red…something, and her eyes are drooping closed. Oh, he’s in love.

“You’re going to be the best dad,” she whispers back, “Do me a favour and put all those doubts and complexes away.”

He swallows against the ever-growing lump in his throat and puts a finger very close to the top of Morgan’s head, hovering because he’s scared to touch her, to disturb her in any way. But she did just tell him not to doubt. So he touches his kid’s forehead, and it’s soft and lovely and _alive_ , and he is so thankful.

“Okay, I don’t have the patience,” Pepper says suddenly, “I need a nap, so you’re holding her. Transfer her to the crib, stare at her for three hours, whatever, Mr. Stark.” And before he has the mental capacity to fully decipher what all of those words mean, she starts moving Morgan in his direction and his arms stick out automatically to hold her.

“I was not prepared for this,” he squeaks, and she grins wearily.

“Well, neither was I.” She closes her eyes, lets out a satisfied sigh and Morgan does the same as she properly settles into Tony’s hold. Yeah, that’s their kid right there, oh God. She snuggles into him and he is a mess of malfunctioning nothing, how is a kid so cute. She’s not even fully developed yet! And he’d do anything for her!

“I love you,” he whispers into her hair. He’ll wait for her to answer.

The door opens gently. Natasha.

“Uh, Happy took everyone else out to eat and I’m here for security detail,” she says, and her voice is soft, and then she looks at Morgan nestled in Tony’s arms, face softening, “Well, Stark. You finally made something fleshy and cute.”

And then she just doesn’t continue, just looks at Morgan with a soft smile on her face.

“Morgan,” Tony whispers, “You turned Natasha Romanoff speechless at like three hours of age, you miracle, you.” He looks at Natasha, huffs, “Come in, now.”

She gingerly sits in the chair next to him, looking at Morgan with an expression close to awe, all masks stripped away.

“I guess this is,” she says finally, “the end to a feud both of us were never really able to commit to.”

“All the Avengers go through a cycle of hating me, I guess, and they’re going through it now, when you were already done by, like 2013.”

His voice is bitter, but he doesn’t see her reaction, because he’s bending to take in Morgan’s baby-scent. It’s…he doesn’t know how to describe it, but he knows he’ll cry whenever it disappears.

“Because I met you earlier.”

“Yeah, I remember. Hell, it’s been a long time.”

She shoots him a look. “No swear words in front of the baby.”

“She’s sleeping!”

“You’ve gotta cultivate a habit.”

“Don’t think I ever will.”

“Pepper will quarter you.”

He shrugs. Smiles when he sees her reaching a tentative finger for Morgan’s hair.

“That is amazing hair, don’t you think?”

“All Pepper’s genes, Stark, don’t get too proud.”

She grins when she sees his pout and winds a curl loosely around her finger, as if she’s afraid to touch it.

“Soft, isn’t it?” He asks.

“Mm hm. Maybe you contributed a bit. Just a bit.”

It’s really very peaceful, this room. Quiet and serene. He doesn’t even mind the smell a lot anymore, because the only smell he’s aware of is that baby smell that he’s only ever heard about till now. Everyone should get to do this, or at least something that brings them peace like this does, since some people don’t like babies all that much. He closes his eyes against a thought—everyone should be on Earth to do something like that. God, _Peter_ …

And that is when he makes a pledge. Screw the consequences, he probably dies. He’s okay with that. He’s been okay with that since the early 70s. He’ll still have been her father, and as her father, he needs to make sure that she has a life which isn’t in a world that mourns half its population.

_I’ll save them all for you, Morgan._

*******

“Morgie, darling!”

Rhodey and Morgan are having a very detailed and intellectual conversation on the living room rug. They’re back at the farmhouse after completing Morgan’s first eight months of life at the Tower, close to the hospitals in case of any mishap. It’s been five months since they came back—Morgan has been one for two months. There was a quiet party, a picnic out by the lake with everyone (Carol and Rocket came from space for it).

Tony watches Morgan babble into Rhodey’s knee. It’s all sickeningly adorable; his daughter has about one thousand nick-names and Harley helps Happy mix up baby food and helps Tony minimize his time in the lab and in payment, gets unlimited time with Morgan. May brings her a new tiny soft toy every time she comes around, and Tony did not know they made toys that small.

Pepper and Tony mostly stay curled into each other’s side, watching it all unfold, talking to Nebula, who doesn’t go too close to Morgan because she’s fearful of her metal hurting the kid. He always scoffs at that, Morgan’s been down to the lab a lot, and she really, really likes the tiny arc reactor he made for her (she has his heart, both literally and metaphorically). He can understand Nebula’s fear though.

Morgan really likes her mother’s hair, grabbing at it and always looking mesmerized by its shine. Pepper likes to say that she’s just like Tony in that respect. Morgan likes to sleep sprawled on top of Tony’s chest, her head nestled under his chin, trapping him effectively on a sofa/bed/any flat surface for the next few hours.

Morgan always tugs at Happy’s tie till he gives up and gives it to her. He’s lost too many ties to Morgan’s persistence. Tony finds ties everywhere. One very late night, he saw one on the lake pier, thought it was a snake, and tried to kill it.

Needless to say, Rhodey fell into the lake laughing. Morgan talks to him a lot, enthusiastically baby-talking him into stopping whatever he’s doing and sitting down with her. They don’t give Rhodey anything to do around the house because you cannot take her away from the man, she will bawl.

However, Morgan’s preferred spot to sit for long durations of time is with Harley. Anywhere around Harley. Curled up in the crook of his arm, sitting on his lap, in the cradle of his arms. He’s her safe space. Both of them have really bonded—Tony thinks Morgan feels that Harley is her age, or at least close to it.

Ned and Morgan do puzzles, ones with rounded edges and velvet coverings and bright, bright, colours. Ned calls her a genius whatever she does, and she looks delighted whenever he does. She pats his face a lot. Morgan plays with the toys May gives her and stares longingly into the oven whenever May bakes. Tony resists the urge to tell her that May’s baking doesn’t taste as pretty as it looks.

Bruce visits very rarely, but visit he does. The first time he did so, he got a teeny-tiny babyproofed chemistry set with him. Tony has no idea how the babyproofing happened, but it was there, and Bruce waved aside most of them (Tony and Harley were all for it) saying that she was kinda young. “It’s just putting random liquids in other random liquids; I’m guessing she makes a mess anyway.” Whenever he visits, he and Morgan play in the kitchen with the set (“Because it’s like a lab, and it smells better”), doing God knows what with literally just salt and water. Bruce asks Tony to hold Morgan back when he uses chemicals for the colourful experiments, and she always seems content to just watch it all happen.

Morgan makes puppy eyes at Nebula. A lot of Huge Puppy Eyes. Nebula eventually always gives up and wraps herself in a blanket, and takes the baby out to look at the sky or the stars. And then Morgan points at something up there, and Nebs launches into a story about something or the other, which Morgan _loves_. It’s not that she completely understands the very complicated space lore a very bundled-up Nebula’s telling her, but she likes Nebula’s voice, and the sky. “And then Asgard’s Odin moved across the sky,” she’d say, and Morgan would say, “Bababa.” It makes for adorable photographs.

Natasha sings to Morgan. Russian, mostly, but sometimes she splits off into other languages, some of which Tony recognizes. She dances with Morgan as she sings, circling around the rooms with the baby in her arms, all lethal grace even as she tickles Morgan under the chin. Sometimes, she puts on a ballet costume and performs—it’s always a dream to stumble across that happening. Morgan always tries to tumble out of her arms; it’s like a game for them. Tony watches as Nat never seems to lose control of his little butterfly, berating softly in (Czech?) if she’s getting too daring. Once she said, “Stop being such a Clint, darling,” and he couldn’t think, because Barton lost his family to Thanos, and Tony feels so helpless.

He tried to find the archer, to no avail.

Whenever Matt comes by, he calls her his little bottle of dopamine, ‘Mina’ for short, sometimes. He flips through his work and talks to Pepper as Morgan crawls all over and around them, quiet because maybe she recognizes they’re doing important work. She is absolutely fascinated by Matt’s glasses, and her fingerprints are all over them. When he’s done with is work, he sighs and looks in her direction, and she always giggles at his attention. He also talks to her, a lot, telling her about cases he won and sometimes the ones he lost. “Could I have done it better?” He asks her at the end. He tells her about Frank, too, the funny stories and the kid’s version of how they fell in love.

Carol comes by very little, but she always brings something. Glowing alien plants, weird soft stuff that she swears is some kind of toy that Pepper uses as a baby blanket, teddy bears when she comes with Maria. They switch off all the lights and Carol makes her skin glow, her suit (if she’s wearing it) change colours. “Monica loves this,” Maria tells Pepper. She makes tiny bubbles of floating lights appear all around the room, and they don’t do anything to Morgan when she tries to touch them, just dart out the way. “Photon spheres,” Carol says, “Kinda hot and kinda harmful for people I don’t like too much.” And then she makes one sit on top of Morgan’s nose as the child giggles. Maria tells Morgan about planes and handles feeding-time whenever Tony or Pepper get too tired, because she is a mom, even if her kid’s grown-up, and she relates to Pepper. 

Tony wonders what Peter and Morgan would do together. He’s sure there would be shenanigans with the web fluid, Peter always staying close in case she decides to eat it. There would definitely be a hammock for them to swing on together. Peter would ask her for opinions on anything, and probably be the one of the few members of the household to baby-talk back at her, mock-fight Harley for the chance to hold her, both losing when she’d go over to Rhodey, both making identical sad faces. Tony can do nothing but think these things, have dreams like these and hope to survive them. 

“Tony?” Pepper asks.

“Hmm,” he looks at her looking at Morgan looking at Rhodey looking at the ceiling as Morgan crawls all over him like he’s her playmat.

“Are we getting this on video?”

He knows she knows that FRIDAY logs everything with special focus for when Morgan’s being adorable (i.e. existing), so he’s pretty sure that question was to pull him out of his thoughts. He’s thankful. Leaning over to kiss her on the right cheek, he says, “FRI’s here for a reason, honey. Infinite home videos.”

“Ah,” she says, “Of course. A billion-dollar AI used for amateur videography. I wonder why I didn’t think of that.”

“A billion-dollar AI being used for careful documentation of a new and awesome species.”

She laughs at that. “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

“Mmff,” articulates Rhodey as Morgan sticks a fist in his mouth.

“Get that kid off of the kid,” orders his wife, and Tony grins, gets off the sofa. Unceremoniously picks Morgan up in his arms, listening to her giggle at being swung up into the air all of a sudden.

“I love my niece,” announces Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes, lying prone on the rug, “she’s amazing. But Pepper, she’s a menace. Most tiring workout of my life, trying to keep up with her. I mean, second to Tony.”

“Don’t listen to the mean man,” Tony coos to a beaming Morgan, who looks like she knows what everyone’s saying about her. Maybe she does. He wouldn’t be surprised in the least. “I love you, darling.”

“Up, Jim,” Pepper smooths her hair back into a messy updo. “I bet Happy will give you snacks if you go whine in his direction.”

“She crawled over me!”

“She’s a baby,” Happy replies, coming into the room, an unimpressed look on his face.

“That’s exactly why she crawled over me!”

“You adorable man,” Pepper grins. “Let no one know War Machine’s weakness is babies.”

“Just Morgan.” Rhodey pushes himself up to sitting position with a groan. Morgan is their little chink in the armour, Tony thinks as he kisses the top of her head and twirls in a slow circle, thinking of the Italian lullabies that Maria Stark had sung to him half-a-century ago, and how the memories he has of his mother always seem to have her bathed in golden light, like an angel. She never was an angel, though.

She was just a person, trying so desperately to be Howard Stark’s wife and a mother on top of that. Maybe that’s what made her heavenly for him, the fact that she managed it at all without even an attempted suicide. Or maybe it was just the fact that she was his _mother_.

What would he know, though. What would he really ever know of heaven except the squirming, gleeful baby in his arms and this warm feeling in the room, in his heart. This is enough; for him, this is enough of heaven. He feels he’d be bored there, if it even really exists.

“Probably doesn’t, does it,” he murmurs to her, feeling one of her tiny fingers and marvelling, like he always does. She gurgles in agreement. “Even if it does, wouldn’t be heaven without you. Or your mom. Or all the people here that I like.”

Morgan reaches out to touch the glass of one of Peter’s framed photos on the wall. She coos at it. It’s a sepia of the Tower, the feet of the Spidey Suit somehow in view at the bottom of the frame. Tony stops mid-turn so she can look at it properly. After her inspection is done, head quirked to the side, uncannily like Pepper looking at something art-related that’s either messed up or done well, she immediately reaches for the photo higher up. It’s a colour photo of the sunset through one of his signature blue holo-projections from the penthouse. Her hand falls short of it, and he can’t hoist her up that high, because he is short, too. She makes a sad little baby noise. He really hopes she gets Pepper’s height genes, but she would be adorable short too.

She’d be perfect any which way.

Rhodey stands behind him, laughing at Morgan struggling to touch the frame. “Hand her over, shortbread.” Tony does, folding his arms as she smiles wide once able to touch the glass.

“I thought she was a menace?”

“I couldn’t see her be so disappointed when I could solve the problem,” Rhodey shrugs.

“You’re hopeless,” Pepper calls out.

Yeah, they are, for her, Tony thinks as he watches everyone look at Morgan touching one of the last things that Peter left behind, unknowing of its meaning like only a child could be. He really wants her to meet Peter. He wants to see Peter be nervous as Morgan grabs at his curls. He wants to see Morgan be confused as Peter demonstrates all the web fluid can do. Maybe he’s being selfish, what with all these people in the room, but he wants the last piece back. Not for him, for his tiny girl.

He already promised he’s going to get everyone back, but well…would she like the consequences of him doing so, directly or indirectly? Because he knows them. He knows what will happen. Even if he isn’t the one that physically makes Peter appear out of thin air—he’ll still die because he helped to do it.

Something always goes wrong. But he is at peace. Maybe some would call him a coward for not fighting it, but they aren’t him. Can you really fight something you’ve been getting infinitesimal glimpses of since you were born, when nothing about it will be a surprise?

Can you fight your end? He’s a science person, and there’s been only one thing drilled into him from Day One: be careful, because you can’t fight Death and win. Cheat it, sure. That’s what he’s been doing his whole life. He spent his entire life trying to erase his destiny, or get it to happen earlier than it was supposed to. He’s okay with it now. What else does he have to do? All he can do is enjoy these few final moments.

*******

Tony’s standing on a cliff. It’s not an American cliff—not very recognizable but vaguely so. Most places in the world are vaguely recognized by him. This is Norway. He knows it is Norway because the grass is an endless carpet of moss green behind him and the air smells fresh and unburnt and lovely. He knows it is Norway because of the songs he hears whenever he passes the bars that look like what he imagined the bars centuries ago looked like. Taverns, really. But most damningly, he knows it is Norway because that is what FRIDAY said very sadly when he touched down.

“New Asgard, Norway,” she had told him as the Suit opened up and he breathed in the cold air and hoped his friend was alright.

“Where’s Thor?” He asks. He knows there’s someone standing next to him, and it just might be the god himself, but somehow, he thinks it isn’t. He’s practically sure it isn’t, what with all the pauses in Natasha’s sentences when she talks about how Thor just left a mere month or so after the Snap, and how it’s been almost three years since then.

That’s what he’s calling it—capital S and all, he doesn’t know what the remnants of the news cycle say it was but he’s sure the name must be a trendy one, and he doesn’t much care because it was just a _snap_ , that was what it _was_ , and calling it something else just completely fucking lessens the enormity of the fact that it was a just a movement of three fingers that completely ruined everyone.

Calling it something that sounds scary and dangerous just seems like a cop-out, like an ‘oh, we heroes fought something totally undefeatable and we should be commended for at least having tried,’ instead of the terrible loss it actually was. Calling it something else makes it seem like it wasn’t their fault, like it was too inevitable to be. But Tony knows, better than most, that it wasn’t inevitable, that they needed a suit of armour around their world.

This was avoidable, all of it. Their stupidity made the whole situation what it is today.

“His Majesty’s in the palace,” a voice says, dry. It’s the driest voice he’s ever heard. He’s impressed, but mostly worried.

“I need some more information, really.”

“Of course you do.”

He looks at the owner of the remarkably dry voice. The owner looks back at him. She has long, black hair, tied back. Her eyes are large, green-grey-blue. Her caramel-skinned face is gaunt with worry and she has the resigned look of the perpetually grieving. She’s a warrior, he notices, because there is only lean muscle on her and a sword at her waist. No armour. Just a sword.

It feels to him like they’ve all given up.

“I’m Tony. Tony Stark. I blow up the bad guys. Or at least I used to.”

“Brunnhilde. Valkyrie.”

Valkyries exist? Sometimes, he just wants to scream at whoever’s running this whole goddamned show, because so many wondrous things exist, and here are all of them, twisted up into a nightmare, and in which iteration of life can that possibly be right?

“Only one left of my kind,” she continues, “I used to ‘blow up’ the bad guys, too.”

He wants to say, ‘so we’re friends?’ but he doesn’t, because both of them sound too bitter and too awkward and like they’ve lost too much to stop at pleasantries, like two people meeting at the apocalypse and looking at the wave of fire or acid or water and just telling each other about the important stuff, the nicer stuff—the past.

Both of them are looking at the sea, the water crashing against the rocks, the white foam clinging to the black cliff face. It’s all very pretty and he cannot, literally cannot find it in himself to begin to appreciate it. He’s not doing too well today. He closes his eyes, listens. 

“How’s Thor.” His voice sounds raspy and unused, somehow, and yeah, this is a struggle right now, he doesn’t want this, he wants to curl up in his bed with his family and not think about anything very complicated and just be, why is he here again, oh right. Thor. Thor who just disappeared. Thor who beheaded Thanos. Thor who lost his brother, the last family he had. Thor, who is hurt and aching and very pointedly definitely not-Thor at the moment.

Or maybe he is Thor. Maybe this is Thor too, and Tony is trivializing the humongous range of emotions that a 5000+ year old god must have, the things he must have seen, the effect they must have had on him, on the way he experiences grief, lives it. Maybe Tony’s just being stupid, and 2-D, and infallibly, perhaps even cruelly, human. He can’t help it. He’s tried.

He swears under his breath, everything feeling clogged up. The air which had seemed so fresh and amazing just feels invasive now, ripping open the jacket he’s wearing.

“He isn’t there,” answers the Valkyrie, and he swears softer still, eyes stubbornly closed, because he knows the expression on her face, has seen it enough times on people who love him and on a few memorable occasions, people who do not, and on his face in the mirror. He knows the way she’s blinking too much—human or not, some things are universal—knows the way she’s counting her words, trying not to worry the other party. Like a doctor.

“I never really knew him, because when I served Asgard, Hela was the heir apparent. Thor and Loki weren’t in the picture. I left because of some things Hela did. Some unforgivable things. Those things made me very, very familiar with grief, and how it erodes a person, overshadows them. Poets say that grief makes a person both their own opposite and closer to themselves than they’ve ever been. Maybe that’s true, but I never had such a pleasant experience, because I mourned too many, seemingly alone. And that is what Thor is going through.”

Tony waits for the end.

“Which is why I say that I never really knew Thor, but I know him now. He gave me a purpose, helped me with my loss, but I cannot—”

She wrings her hands, posture ramrod straight even as her face crumples with distress.

“That man inside is Thor. He would not wish to be called Thor, because it is too painful for him. And I know, because I was there, so trust me. He’s not the same. Might shock you.”

“I know,” he whispers.

“I know,” she says.

‘Just wanted to make sure, because he’s my friend,’ goes unsaid. There is a lot both of them aren’t saying, and this is almost too strained in a way he doesn’t think he can survive.

“I—,” he starts. Sighs. “I don’t think anyone alive really knows Thor, and I think that’s heart-breaking and one of the innumerable reasons why he’s not okay, and I think I cannot do anything about it, but that does not mean I can’t try.”

“I respect that, just a bit.”

He opens his eyes, watches her turn away and begin walking, and takes his last deep breath of stinging Norway air. He knows that Thor wishes this was Asgard. He’s so sad. They’re all so—

He walks after the Valkyrie.

“Boss?” FRIDAY says into his ear.

“I’m okay, baby girl.”

She’s quiet, but under easier circumstances, she would say ‘Yeah, right,’ like Harley. He misses home. He misses Pepper, and Morgan, and Rhodey, and Happy, and the fact that there they’ve carved out some happiness for themselves, jealously. Here, in this cold country that used to worship now-dead gods centuries ago, Thor must be so alone. And yet, he chose this, because the Avengers Compound is barely better.

(“It tastes like regret,” Natasha had said, once, after putting Morgan to sleep, “It looks like a morgue. I don’t know, Stark. I don’t know. I don’t know why. I don’t know how to fix it, and that hurts.”

“I don’t like the idea of people hating you, not after you say things like that, Natasha. I can’t stand it. Do you want an autobiography or a biography written, full disclosure to the ungrateful masses?”

“Shut up. Please.”)

A house is coming up in front of them, slightly squashed, all wood and stone and a Father Christmas chimney on top. Thunder rolls in the sky above, but then the weather reports say that this is only normal and that one should give up on the sun appearing already. The house doesn’t look well-loved, or any of those aesthetic descriptors. It doesn’t look like a place where you’d want to live. It’s creaking, and there are no windowpanes, and it’s not good. Wooden barrels labelled ‘BEER’ sit in its general vicinity.

A lot of them.

Tony hears a very gruff roar, followed by a smash. He winces, slows down. Brunnhilde doesn’t, just keeps walking. He thinks he sees her shoulders slump for a second, but it’s probably wishful thinking. She’s grown used to it.

“He’s still the God of Thunder,” she reminds no one, and pushes the protesting door open.

“You are nothing but a tiny little midget of nothing compared to me, so I suggest you lose,” Thor is growling into a phone. There is a pile of sentient rocks wearing a floral Hawaiian button-down with a controller and headphones on, who waves at Tony.

“Korg. And you, friend?”

“Tony,” he says, amused.

“Any good at—”

“Stark,” says Thor gruffly but loudly, an incline of his head. There is something missing now, in the way he exists, like he woke up one morning to find the sky gone and just decided to stick with it.

His hair is an overgrown mess, his scruff out of control, he has a beer belly growing, and his words end in slurs. Tony feels immeasurably sad, and wants to take him to a doctor, or someone, anyone, who he will listen to, who will help him. God, even Loki would be a gift.

“Thor, buddy—”

“Would you know how to beat an imbecile at this game of forts and knights?”

Thor has always been intelligent without appearing to be. Has always been the person to figure out conversations, to diffuse tensions, to make a faux pas in the middle of a Situation to make everyone laugh, to deflect what he knows they cannot answer at a press conference with his golden charm or some long, distracting Asgardian anecdote. (He would’ve stopped Tony and Cap fighting, no doubts.)

Tony can see the question for what it is, and hates it. 

Thor knew emotions, which is why he was the media darling. Tony was far too unconcerned about the media or team welfare of the Avengers to bother most of the time, and Natasha was the same, and no one else among that group knew how to handle the press. Thor was tactful, and careful with his words, all the while appearing to be loud and boisterous as the Life Of The Party. A lot like Tony, really, except with more genuine Good thrown in there.

Tony wishes, that when he is dead, someone figures it out. Or Thor figures himself out, that it’s okay to be sad and okay to not have your shit together and that doesn’t make you any less powerful, or any less _you_. He wishes, that after he is gone and everything has turned for either the good or the worse, Thor has people who he can call his friends years, decades later, that he doesn’t have to come back to this cold place that he is not meant to be king of.

Maybe Thor was never the sort of man who was meant to be a ruler of a land like this, all alone in a post of power. Maybe he was just a man. Extraordinarily powerful, yes, but a good man underneath it, and overriding it, a man on whom power was wasted, because he would need people to share it with. He hopes, after he dies, Thor can find a friend worthy enough to give the burden of monarchy to.

He only now gets it, gets it all, which is why he says, “Yeah, I’m sure I do, Sparky.”

*******

“Hey, kiddo.”

He steps into the lab to find Harley working away. It’s very early morning, and really, no one should be awake and he himself barely is, clutching a pot of coffee to his chest like it’ll save him, but the kid looks like he’s been working for a while.

“Yeah, good morning,” Harley mutters, absorbed in the glowing virtual models hanging over his head. Tony takes a bracing sip of his coffee that turns into a scalding gulp and leaves his back straighter than it was before, his vision clearer, and he remembers that he should talk to Harley, because it looks like the crazy little nugget hasn’t slept at all, and no, nope, that is not acceptable. He’s going to talk Harley to sleep, but he has to start talking first.

“What are you working on?”

Oh, hell. Now he’s going to go get interested and then he’s going to forget about Harley needing to sleep and goddamn it, why does he have to make all his tasks harder—

“Working on time travel. Nah, that’s too fancy for what I’m doing. Tampering with time, milliseconds at first. No dice, though.”

He gapes. Stops gaping. Wants to shriek and shout and rage. Why is a little boy, _his_ little boy working on this instead of sleeping? Why are his eyes red-rimmed and his usually fluid movements stilted, unsure? Why is he scared to touch his own calculations, as if terrified they might ruin something instead of fixing too many others? Why has he put up blueprints over certain photos in the place like its too painful to look at them? He wants compensation. Compensation from whoever made this life this way, this painful and this hard to survive. He wants his due. No, scratch all that fucking _bullshit_.

Tony Stark wants blood.

“The laws of space and time are fixed like that,” he says instead.

Harley laughs bitterly. “They’ve taken too much from us to dare stay the same.”

Tony Stark wants _blood_.

“Harley…”

He walks over, collapses onto the couch the kid should be sleeping on, always sleeps on whenever he works too long in the lab. Tony generally finds him curled up on the ratty old thing, half-hanging off because he’s big now, he’s big now. So much older than when Tony first saw him, in a garage much like this one but in very different circumstances. Tennessee winter, when snow was chilling his skin and the blood dripping from numerous cuts in his face was warming it right back up as he dragged his useless (ugh, Mark 42, you dustbin lid disaster) armour behind him. Back then his life was just beginning to end, now, helpless, aching moments like these, it sometimes feels like its half-gone already, he’s half-dead already.

“What?”

“Why, Harl?”

“I know I have no right,” he sighs, and retracts the steps he takes every good night to flop beside Tony. “I know it, okay? I live a much better life compared to so many other people, with permission to visit you guys whenever I want and the peace of knowing that my mom didn’t die because of Thanos. She died on her own terms, and long before that eyesore did this, all of this. I know I’m not starving or a tiny baby abandoned because its’ parents didn’t make it. I guess, to many people, I don’t deserve to grieve, that I should just carry on and attempt to make the best of this. Maybe they’re right, but I am weak. I can’t do it.”

Harley curls into him, and tears glimmer on his face. Tony pushes his thick light brown hair back from his eyes, and remembers that it used to be blonde, when he was younger, when he used to smile like his heart wasn’t broken.

“It hurts too much, and I know I’m not enough to even make the smallest difference in the way the Universe works, because I’m not that intelligent.”

Tony knows how it will end, now, and closes his eyes against Harley’s words.

“You are, though.”

“Harley,” he says, “the idea is. It’s impossible. I know why you might want it to work out, but it can’t work out. There are _laws_ that all this runs according to, restrictions, and I—hey. No one’s brainy enough to get through all of that.”

“Bullshit,” the boy bites out, his hands curled into fists. “Bull. Shit.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I’ve never known you so defeated. Hell, you haven’t even tried—I went through your files, you know. You didn’t do anything. There’s nothing concrete on that specially allotted server. I’m not angry or anything, but—I don’t know. I guess I thought you could solve this, that you had a plan. Sorry. Good night.”

Harley gets up, and Tony can’t do anything but watch him walk out. “Good night, kiddo,” he says.

“FRIDAY?”

“He’s in his room.”

“He didn’t find any of my work on time travel, did he?”

“No,” the AI says, and he can sense the disapproval in her tone, the ‘this is not an advisable action’ buzzing in her code, but she doesn’t say anything. Good girl. “I kept it well out of reach. Distracted him with a bunch of fake data.”

“Thanks. Could you throw up the papers I sourced from Foster? The old ones—pre-2012, I guess.”

Foster’s papers talk about the Einstein-Rosen bridge she _thinks_ Asgard might use for transport, and he smiles. He always likes reading through these, through the hypotheses she put up before she discovered she was right. They have a tentativeness to them that a lot of intelligent people don’t adopt or even understand. They’re nice. At some places, she’s made it easier for laymen to understand with a translation on the left side of the page.

_The bridge is using, on a regular basis, more energy than is possible for man to create, even with the use of nuclear resources such_

Yeah, he thinks, yeah, maybe, I’ve never been there, I wish I had, because now it’s all gone and I will die, anyway. (He can feel his life ending, like sparks running on his skin, burning him more and more every single time.) A year, two years from now, probably, probably not.

So he waits.

*******

The day before Tony changes the perception of time by successfully creating time travel with a pointer from Scott Lang, Nat calls him.

“Tony,” she says, and there’s something in her voice. He immediately puts down his work, wipes the grease from his fingers. He can feel it, the vast and immeasurable something that she’ll tell him.

It’s time, he thinks.

“Nat.”

“We’ll be coming over to your place tomorrow.”

He closes his eyes, breathes in, looks at his ceiling. “You and Bruce? Of course, Morgan misses you guys, come over—”

“I know you know what I’m going to say, Stark. Me, Rogers. This guy called Scott Lang who survived travel to some quantum dimension and insists he knows the theory of how to get time travel working, that no one else but you can actually do it.”

There’s something in her voice. He thinks it’s hope.

“We can save them, Tony. We can get them back.”

It’s painful to hear that in her voice, that little hitch in her words, her almost sentient thoughts of _please say yes_.

“I’ve tried getting to this time travel lark, Nat. It’s not a thing. Just. Not. Possible,” he says, trying to keep his voice calm, but a lot of his frustration bleeds out anyway, and he hears her sigh.

“What if it is?”

He gives himself a second, no more, no less. He thinks about it, Jen, back straight, head held high, walking out onto a field of grass with a smart-ass remark, seeing Peter’s smile again, wide and happy and brighter than the glitter of fireworks on a pitch-black summer sky. He _dreams_ about it, everyone all together again, the way they’ll all look, safe and warm and complete.

And he says: “Come over, then.”

“Oh.”

“I can’t promise you anything, you know that. Best not hold your breath, start believing in something that won’t happen.”

“I don’t believe in _you_ , Tony Stark,” answers the Black Widow, voice tremulous and weary and fond for all of it, “I believe in your heart.”

Isn’t it all me, he wonders as she (virtually) leaves, her words echoing in his brain, isn’t it all me, and hence just as unreliable or reliable, however you choose to see it? The Cap angle, though. That. That might be something—not quite a problem, not now, it’s been five whole years. But yeah, it’s something.

He knows and fully backs the decisions he made during what the media called a superhero ‘Civil War.’ He doesn’t regret a thing in that disaster, not a _thing_ , not a word he said, not the hurt he inflicted. It’s the things that happened before them all that he’s sorry about, the misunderstandings, the untruths. But he doesn’t regret the airport, he doesn’t regret Siberia. Not at all.

Because Tony had loved his parents. Past all sense and reason, perhaps, past all normal and rational boundaries—all he had done in his life had been a plea, _notice me, know I’m there, love me_. He had craved attention and decency from his father, and maybe just mere comprehension from his mother, and had got nothing, but had loved them anyway.

He had loved his mother infinitely more than his father, because she remembered herself as she used to be for moments in the mirror, Dior red across her lips like armour, had said “Darling?” to him as he had moved to secure the clasp of her pearl necklace. The second she looked away from the looking-glass, she was lost, but for those few blissful moments, she had been present, and she had loved him, which was more than could be expected of his father.

And he had believed for his whole, damaged life that she died because of his drunk bastard of a father, had sunk that truth into the marrow of his bones: _Howard Stark killed my mother_ one of the few things he could say with a palm on the Bible, his eyes on wooden walls. He had formed his feelings and his nothings around that fact, had known how to be and who to be partly because of it, had known he was definitely not his father only because of it.

_the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth._

Then it turned out he it was all wrong, and he didn’t have a basis, not anymore, Howard hadn’t been drunk, hadn’t been compromised, had begged for her life with his dying breath. The first thing he’d thought as the information sunk in like Titanic in his self was _of course he did. I would’ve done the same._

And then there it was again, in a frigid bunker, feeling himself stripped to his nerves. The swelling, debilitating feeling of failure, of _I am no better and no worse than the man I hated, I am my father, I am, I am._

When he had turned to Captain America, and asked if he had known, it had not been about the murder. He had asked Steven Grant Rogers, the man who had seen and known Howard Stark if he, Tony Stark, was the same. He had asked the paragon of truth and honesty if he and his father were the same. If he had seen the similarities.

And dear, darling Cap had said yes.

Tony knew, even then, that that was another misunderstanding, that he agreed to knowing about the kill, not the other thing, but that was just as bad, really, so he had swung. It was his parents. How dare they not tell him about who killed his parents? The whole Howard thing was just his crazed psyche insisting that he was just as repulsive as his father, that they’ll be the same. Thoughts like that keep him awake at night, but he’s a good parent, he knows.

He’s better now than he was then, so he’s okay with the Steve thing. He really is, because if this time travel thing pans out, if Scott Lang isn’t just a crazy man overdosed on LSD, screwed up by the Ant-Man (nice name, Pym, seriously, bet you had to think for like, a few whole months about it) suit, this might be something. He doesn’t move in his chair, doesn’t say anything, doesn’t call Harley to tell him to come over from wherever he is in Central America.

‘I Want It That Way’ blares suddenly in the silence, and he snorts. Of course.

“Rhodes, how are you?”

The moron always sings along to their damned ringtone.

“My one desire, believe when I say—”

“I want it that way,” Tony obliges, voice flat. He can hear Rhodey pout.

“You’re no fun.”

“How’s life out in space, you complete sap? How’s Nebula?”

“All okay,” his friend answers, sounding tired but all right. “How’s it all over there?”

“Happy’s at the city, Pepper is oscillating between SI and home, me and Morgan are helping her with cookies, Harley’s with a troupe of volunteers and all, helping people who’re. You know.”

“I do know. I hope you aren’t the one baking the cookies, though.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, me cooking is a hazard to existence, I have a child now, universes may be burned down, etcetera. What do you need?”

“Uh,” says Rhodey, “uh, Nat asked me to locate Barton.”

“Oh, fuck,” responds Tony. “What the hell, what?”

“I need location, I know you can find him.”

“Of course I can, chiquitita, but didn’t she issue a blanket ban on anyone trying to disturb him?”

“I know what she did, but I swear to you, she asked me to help find him and she’s really _sad_ , Tones.”

“Yeah, I—I’ll try to find Robin Hood, okay?”

“I know you got a tracker on him,” the menace says, sounding unimpressed, as usual, really. “Send me the info.”

“Already done, if I know FRI.”

“Yes, you do, it’s here. Oh, it’s been here ever since some time after this phone call started, what a surprise. Thank you, FRIDAY.”

“Traitor,” Tony mutters at his AI, “Be careful. Tell Nat to be careful. You know what his anger management technique is these days, right?”

“Slicing up people?” His voice is grim. “I think she knows how that works.”

“Too well, yes. But something tells me—”

“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Everyone back at the Compound again, oh my,” he says, and Tony can almost see his smirk. God, he misses Rhodey. “However will the great Avengers cope?”

“I know, right,” Tony snarks back. “On the upside, you’ll be back soon, too.”

“Ah, I hope so. Gotta go now, something’s come up.”

“You okay?”

Tony cannot stem the tide of worry that rises from somewhere in the pit of his stomach, thinks of a dozen hypotheticals and a few thousand more. Death, death, fucking everywhere, isn’t it, polluting his mind and his thoughts even as he knows, strongly, almost certainly, that he’s the doomed one. He begged, goddamn it all. Whatever happens to him, they’re all going to live. They have to, they have to. It’ll always be his only reason for attempting to save the world.

“Always, Tones.”

*******

The days go by faster and faster. Tony writes and records what he thinks will be his last message late at night, wearing a dark suit and a smile so that Morgan knows him. (He feels for her, he really does, but he’ll make sure that she’ll have her support system. She may miss him, but she’ll know people who used to know him, she’ll have all her stories.)

“I love you,” he’d said to her. “I love you tons.”

“I love you 3000,” she’d answered, and he’d teared up even though he has heard it a million times.

He looks at the blue all around him, says his silent goodbyes into the air. He performs the last checks on the Rescue Suit, a labour of love if there ever was one, and makes it the colour Pepper’s gown had been when he’d danced with her for the first time, and she had been beautiful, and all this time later, it sometimes feels like nothing has changed from that moment except their skin.

He loves her. He always will. All his life, he’s been given these little glimpses at what his death will be like, but he really didn’t need them—because the important things are breathing.

He thinks about a nightmare Pepper recently had, weirdly specific, about him dying. He hadn’t been able to comfort her. She has always been the intelligent one out of the two of them. Moreover, she knows when he lies. Most of the time, she rolls with it, amused—but needless to say, that night, things had been less joyful. He wouldn’t be surprised if she has a funeral all planned out, heartbreak in increments. For the sake of propriety, he doesn’t go looking.

He should be feeling better about himself. He figured out time travel. They’re going to go back in time, get all the stones. It isn’t a foolproof plan, but it isn’t a bad one, either. It’s the only thing they have, so they really don’t have much choice. Even if it was doomed from the beginning, they’d still be doing it, because they owe it to the vanished. Tony’s mostly doing it for Peter, he knows. He’s never been altruistic.

He doesn’t want to die. It hits him like a sledgehammer, the revelation. He wants to stay, watch his kids grow up, grow old with Pepper, have restful evenings with Happy, tinker in the lab with Rhodey, be carefree. He does not want to leave so early, even though he’s lived long. He wants to hold on with his fingernails, fight his way from destiny.

But destiny is destiny is destiny, and there is a thriving argument for him having cheated death too many times, so he bows his head and goes with the plan.

*******

Natasha dies.

Tony feels the burn of tears when Barton lands in the present alone, his fingers loose on the Soul Stone. He _knows_ when he sees the archer’s white face, stumbles back a few steps, denial ringing in his head like an alarm bell, white noise mixing with agony, a high-pitched keen in his ear.

_nononononononono—_

“See you in a minute,” she had said. He can still hear her, damn it, can see her hair out of the corner of his eye, and what has it all come to?

He regrets going with the plan, he really does. He’s rushing through the five stages of grief faster than any of the team, his brain processing it and putting it away for later, for better times. He can’t even grieve. As a result, he asks Barton if she had any family while Bruce tosses a bench into the air and thought _Nat would’ve wanted us to be better_ when he sees them fall apart. The Avengers, ladies and gentlemen. She had always been the only thing holding them together.

Tony remembers how Fury had let them think Coulson was dead to make them take action ages ago. This’ll have the same effect on them, but Natasha is _dead_ , really and truly gone, body freezing on some alien planet with no one to hold her. Inhale, exhale.

He can see her, 12 years ago. It has been that long, it really has, 2011 a pipe dream when their most pressing foe was fucking Justin Hammer and he wants to go back with a cold fury that builds the gauntlet in which he puts the stones, their stones. When the Soul Stone falls in its’ place, the last of the lot, he closes his eyes.

Tony still cannot believe she’s dead. Who’ll run the world with her gone? Who’ll put this band of failed superheroes in a semblance of order? How can she be gone, so suddenly, so unchangeably?

It isn’t fair, it isn’t.

Didn’t she know that there were people who loved her? They could’ve figured something out, fuck the rules, they could’ve fooled somebody. She didn’t have to _die_.

“Red off your ledger, Tasha?” He hears Clint ask empty air. “Are your debts paid?”

Steve wears out reinforced punching bags faster than he ever has, saying nothing.

Thor searches for alternatives, calls for her. “Of course you live, most revered friend Natasha.”

Bruce defaults to the Hulk, merged though they both may be now, mourning for a love he never quite had.

And Nat? She doesn’t listen, because she can’t.

That is why they never have a funeral or a wake or whatever. They refuse to accept it, every single one of them, and it is a horrible state of affairs, one Tony doesn’t want to comprehend but lives in, day in and day out, and he thinks that when he’d hugged his useless fucking father, he should’ve hugged Jarvis. He should’ve done so many things.

Because life is short, and all their decisions have been made indelible.

*******

Peter, thank God. Tony looks up at the sky and thanks every single deity that ever existed. He looks so young, Tony thinks, and he wants to go make sure Jen’s there too, but this is the middle of a battle, for some odd reason. He wants him to meet Morgan, to hug May and Ned and Harley and everyone who missed him, but Tony hugs him first.

He can’t help it. He loves his child.

*******

 _just because it’s over doesn’t mean it’s the end_ , sang Katy Perry once. Tony’s always hated that song, found it overly optimistic, because when he does this, it will be both over and the end for him. He still hates it when he sees Strange’s finger go up (one out of 14 000 605 probabilities, fuck, this was nigh-impossible but it happened), and wow, people think it’s all so heroic but he’s got the brainpower to think of Katy Perry songs, for fuck’s sake.

At least he’s in character.

He can see Peter out of the corner of his eye, Rhodey doing his War Machine shtick, and Pepper flying above and being too generally fucking amazing and what did he do to deserve all of them again?

He hates what he’s going to do, but he loves them more. He loves all of this more than himself, so he throws himself into the fray, barrelling into Thanos.

You’re not winning again, he thinks, savage. You’re not making my life any more difficult, and you _will never exist again_. Not if I have anything to do about it.

“I am inevitable,” he boasts, and Tony feels the nanotech move, and he’s a genius, he’s a prophet, he knew this would happen so it does, just as he thought, the Infinity Stones shining on his hand, the power pushing him to his knees, but he looks up defiant.

And oh, it hurts, but he’s got something to say.

“And I,” he announces, loud and clear, a declaration with his dying breaths, “Am Iron Man.”

Because time’s a precious commodity and because these things are burning him inside out, he snaps his fingers.

Ages of power and emotion roll through him, and he can feel his nerves shudder like setting himself on fire, his brain overloading with information from times long-forgotten, a terrible state of being, the lights the lights the _lights_ , vision whiting out like so many overdoses but more permanent, agony like tearing into skin and doing it forever, and there are so many things he didn’t say, didn’t do, grief and memories living in him like an ecosystem. Regrets, threats, hate, mechanics pain pain pain.

Morgan. It’s for Morgan. Her smile like the sunshine glancing off DUM-E, You and Butterfingers in his workshop, the sound of JARVIS and FRIDAY and all the things he ever made, Pepper with her hair like fire plated with gold, Rhodey with his strong hands and stalwart voice, Happy, his foot on the pedal and a “come on, boss” whenever Tony needed it. He’s doing it for them.

And he’s falling like a marionette with its strings cut, and it’s all so _silent_. Rhodey, Peter crying. He tries to say it, tries to tell them, tries to apologize and say I love you in the same breath, but it all ends up in something he doesn’t want to think about. (There’s no coming back from this, he’s dead.)

Which is what FRIDAY tells the quiet when Pepper turns up.

Oh, Pepper.

He has to make an effort, now, has to, so he says the first thing that comes to mind, the last thing that comes to mind, she’ll always be his good-luck charm, his goddess, his prayer, “Hey, Pep.”

He can see her eyes shining, but she smiles anyway, his darling, she’s so strong, she’s always so strong, and she says, “We’ll be okay, you can rest now,” in a voice that he is sure no one should hear, ever. He wants to say _I know, dear, tell my child I love her since I couldn’t, not nearly enough times_.

He’s known this for a long time, practically since he was born, since he put the Suit on, since he saw death for the first time, since he felt joy for the first time.

He, Anthony Edward Stark, Tony Fucking Stark, Iron Man, The Futurist (so many other names he doesn’t care to know) has known this end forever.

He loves them he loves them he loves—

*******

(“Will build her a world of peace,” a guy with his gift had said a long time ago. It had been one of the few things he got right.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you had feelings about it! Comments are very appreciated.


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